Our West End

Hi Friends,  Can you believe it has been 4 years already!?!?! Time sure flies and these last 4 years have been unprecedented, both in achievements and challenges. We have made great progress but there is still so much more to do.  To learn more about the campaign and stay in touch, please follow us on twitter, facebook, my blog at  ourwestend.com  and my website at  fabiocostante.ca . I will be providing regular updates as we go!  I am writing to you today to ask for your support and help during this upcoming campaign for re-election to City Council. Any successful campaign would not be possible without the help, energy and commitment of volunteers and donors. During the next two months, we will need assistance with the following:  Calls to Residents:  We have a long list of residents that will need to be contacted over the coming weeks. If you are interested in helping with calls, please send me an email and we will provide you with some tim...

Friends, please know that I've been dedicating every hour of every day communicating and relaying the concerns of residents and businesses to the Police, the Mayor's office, and the leadership team at City Hall regarding the ongoing national security situation along Huron Church Rd. Three very recent updates that I'd like to share are the following:  Residents in Sandwich Town taking the Central 3 will be offered free bus passes during this temporary closure; The intersection at Industrial and Northwood has been opened for east/west traffic; and Emergency Services (Fire and Ambulance) will not be delayed or affected by this closure. Police have stated and posted publicly that response times will remain the same. I will be sharing more in the coming days, but in the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach me directly at fcostante@citywindsor.ca or at 519-252-1005. I must re-iterate that this is a national security and police situation and Council do...

Friends, I'm so happy and thrilled to announce that we are getting a GIANT TIGER in the west-end!!! I just got off the phone with their manager of communications and confirmed that the location will be at 1475 Huron Church Rd. Many residents have wanted this and have been advocating for this for several years! See below for further confirmation on their website and pics of construction from my site walk earlier today. It is slated to open in October, 2022! We keep growing and diversifying, bringing more core amenities to our neighbourhoods!

Friends,  I have been reflecting over the holidays on the past year and everything we've been able to accomplish as a community. Despite the pandemic, we have been able to do so much to move our neighbourhoods forward in what I deem as an unprecedented year. Here are some of the highlights that I think are important as we move forward:  Roads & Sewers Some roads which have been done recently or are geared to start soon include the following:  Phase 3 of Huron Church between College and Girardot recently completed and an application has already been put forward to complete the 4th and final stretch between Girardot and Dorchester McKay, Curry and Adanac have been recently completed as a continuation of the College, McKay, Curry and Laing project Sandwich Street sewer relining has already begun and the road reconstruction starts this year!  Cameron, Brock, Rankin and Randolph have all been complete at different stretches this past year Rooney and Josephine are alre...

Hi Friends,  The 2022 budget will be held on December 13th this year and Council just received the documents this past Friday. I was able to go through the entire budget plan, both capital and operating, over the weekend and I am looking to schedule meetings with residents in the coming weeks to discuss what the budget means for the west side.  I am proposing virtual town hall meetings over zoom so if you are interested in learning more about the budget, please send me an email at fcostante@citywindsor.ca and we will sign you up on the list. I will be proposing dates and times in the near future depending on interest level and availability.  I would like to hear from you, your ideas and your thoughts for our community. Looking forward to engaging with you on this very important City budget.   Fabio

Friends,  In case you missed it, below is a full video of my virtual Ward 2 meeting. I focused on 10 topics in the meeting that I though were most important to residents in the west-end. Have a look and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me or call anytime. Always happy to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and progress we've made together. Email: fcostante@citywindsor.ca Phone: 519-252-1005 Stay in touch! Fabio

Hi friends,  I wanted to provide a brief synopsis of today's Council meeting as there are some items of interest to residents in the west-end.  First, I am happy to report that Council unanimously supported my committee motion not to remove the streetlights at Brock and Sandwich and at Campbell and Grove. There was an administrative report recommending the removal of streetlights at these intersections, among others, and Council supported my motion to keep them there considering there are two grade schools close by at each location.  Second, we were supposed to discuss and debate the Legacy Beacon project and the Festival Plaza Canopy project today. Councillor Gignac put forward a motion to defer these items until administration reported back on a comprehensive report looking at these two projects together with the Civic Esplanade project that is set to come forward at some point in the future. I supported this motion because I think it gives us a bigger picture to assess...

  Hi Friends, As you may have heard or read, the City and the University of Windsor announced a partnership that would see the sharing of the newly constructed University pool and a complete overhaul of Adie Knox into a robust community centre. I want to share with you all that I know so far about the plan, and more importantly, I want to hear from you about it. The high level details of this $42million investment that is subject to community consultation and Council approval, includes two main components. They Are as follows: 1)      City – University Partnership -         93% of pool programming at Adie Knox will be available at the same time at the UofW pool for City residents and the community -         City residents will have free onsite parking -         User fees will be the exact same as is currently being paid at Adie Knox -  ...

Hi Friends,  It has been a busy winter with several positive developments for the west-end. As the weather gets a bit warmer and we head into spring, I am hopeful that with each day passing, COVID is further and further behind us and we can finally get to some place of normalcy.  The Residential Rental License We finally did it! Council directed administration to draft a Residential Rental License bylaw, to be piloted in Wards 1 & 2, with the intent that it be rolled out City-wide after the pilot. I campaigned on this issue and it was something that I felt strongly about well before I was elected to City Council. Although the RRL will not solve all of the challenges in our neighbourhoods as it relates to housing, it is a critical component of a multi-pronged solution to creating safer and stronger neighbourhoods. A big thank you to the majority of City Council for supporting my motion, and especially to the residents in my community who have been fighting for thi...

Hi Friends,  I wanted to give an update since I last blogged on some developments in Ward 2, including the City Budget that was just passed and the Residential Rental License debate that will be coming to Council on March 8th.  Sandwich Street Sewer Relining and Road Reconstruction Thanks to $12million in community benefits from the Gordie Howe Bridge and $8.6million from City Council, the sewer relining and road reconstruction of Sandwich Street has begun. This project will be from the roundabout to the new Gordie Howe Bridge and will include streetscaping, new bike lanes and many other features that will span over 3km in length. This is much needed and will be wonderful for local residents, businesses and those coming to and out of Sandwich Town.  McKee Park Shoreline and Boat Dock At our budget meeting, Council approved $150,000 for shoreline protection, in addition to $200,000 being provided by the Gordie Howe Bridge Community Benefits. In addition, the City recently ...

Friends,  Happy to report some positive developments at today's Council meeting that just concluded. They are as follows:  1) Council directed administration to draft a licensing bylaw for short term rentals (i.e. Air B&Bs, etc.) in our City. The licensing bylaw will effectively prohibit investors from purchasing properties and renting them out as short-term rentals. Only properties that are the principal residence of the homeowner could be rented out. This will help mitigate issues such as noise, parking concerns, safety and general nuisance, and further free up much needed housing for permanent tenants and homeowners.  2) Council extended the food hub at Adie Knox until the end of the year. The Unemployed Help Centre is currently running a food hub for those in need at the ice pad at Adie Knox and requested to continue the service until at least the end of the year. This service was put in place as a result of COVID related measures and for community safety and supp...

Hi Friends,  It has been a while since I last posted on here. Due to COVID-19, all ward meetings across the city will be postponed this year but we will be hosting a telephone town hall this upcoming Thursday, October 8th at 6:30pm. More details to come on this so stay tuned and mark the date and time in your calendar!  I would like to post only some updates since my last post in no particular order of priority or sequence. I know I'll be missing some things but I intend to regularly blog here and share information on my social media sites (facebook and twitter) moving forward.  Sandwich Street Reconstruction There has been some developments on the Sandwich St. reconstruction project. If you recall, the WDBA, through the Gordie Howe Community Benefits fund, allocated $12million to this project. Thanks to the support of City Council, the City this past year allocated an additional $13.8million. Some preliminary work has started including archeological testing and site test...

Friends and Neighbours,  Today City Council voted in favour of moving forward with the Celestial Beacon project in an 8-2 majority vote. For those who may have been unable to watch the Council meeting, I would like to explain my rationale for voting in favour of this project and why I think it will be a net benefit to our community, both as a west-end community and a City at large.  Before I dive into the contents of the matter, I want to thank everyone who emailed, called and expressed concern and excitement over the development. On the spectrum, some residents did not want the development at all, some expressed concerns, and some were very excited to move forward with the Celestial Beacon development. These varying views weighed heavily on me and after much discussion, listening, learning, researching and weighing all factors, I made a decision that was difficult but I believe to be the right one.  History and Context   Approximately 20 years ago, the Cit...