A Ontario housing report released Monday estimates Windsor and Essex County will need an additional 30,400 homes by 2031 to wipe out the existing shortage and meet future demand.

The report by the national research think tank Smart Prosperity Institute noted the area has a current shortage of 9,900 homes and will need the construction of another 20,400 homes.

“These numbers could turn out to be actually conservative for the area with (the battery plant, bridge, new hospital and automotive) investments being made there,” said economist Mike Moffatt, a senior director at the Smart Prosperity Institute and one of the co-authors of the report. “The numbers (of homes required) could absolutely be larger.”

The complete report is available at: institute.smartprosperity.ca/1.5MillionMoreHomes.

To add 30,400 homes to the current total of 165,000 would represent an 18.4 per cent increase in the local housing stock.

From 2016 to 2021 Statistics Canada reports the average number of new dwellings constructed annually in the region was 1,350.

Windsor Essex Home Builders Association vice president Brent Klundert called the challenge “mind boggling.”

“Those numbers are staggering,” Klundert said. “Every builder would have to triple or quadruple construction to meet that. That’s just not possible at the current stage.”

Moffatt said the housing shortage in Essex County, like much of Southwestern Ontario, is being driven by robust population growth that is out pacing supply.

Migration from the Greater Toronto Area, immigration and enrolment growth at colleges and universities are key drivers of that population expansion.

“Anywhere there’s a university or college there’s going to be a fair need for more housing in the next 10 years,” Moffatt said.

“The hope is some of these students will stay in the area and 18 to 25-year-olds are what will make up the housing market over the next 10 years.”

The University of Windsor and St. Clair College have enjoyed strong enrolment growth in recent years, particularly in recruiting international students. Their combined enrolments now exceed 30,000 students.

Moffatt added since 2015, when the oil industry began contracting, the region has also seen the return of many locals from out west. With the manufacturing sector also stagnating for several years after the 2008 financial crisis, the home-building market was soft creating the existing shortage.

The demand for housing has also increased with GTA residents pushing further and further out into Ontario in search of more affordable housing.

Moffatt expects that trend to continue locally.

“There’ll be some remote work, but I think industries in the automotive supply chain will see some GTA residents coming here with the battery plant and spinoffs,” Moffatt said.

“If you’re working in an automotive plant in the GTA, it makes sense to explore coming to Windsor where the cost of housing still remains much cheaper.”

However, both Moffatt and Klundert admit to being more optimistic about attacking the problem than in recent years.

“The three levels of government have finally focused on it being a supply problem not a demand problem,” Klundert said.

Klundert added the solutions are going to require significant changes in the areas of regulatory process, labour and productivity. He said cleaning up the regulatory process is the toughest hurdle to clear.

“The top ask from local home builders in our recent meeting with Ontario housing minister Steve Clark was to standardize the regulatory process,” Klundert said. “Make it the same across all municipalities.”

Klundert added the process, especially for rezoning land to residential, takes far too long.

Klundert said equally important is government must address the shortage of skilled labour. He welcomes the province’s request to the federal government for more control in bringing in skilled tradesmen from abroad to address the shortage.

“Pre-COVID it took us 110 to 120 days to build a house,” Klundert said. “Now with labour and supply shortages, it’s taking upwards of 180 days. That’s reduced the year to two build cycles from three cycles.”

Moffatt added the housing industry also needs to dramatically increase its productivity.

That means more adoption of prefab construction, off-site building and the introduction of more technology to speed up construction times.

“We can’t keep using the same process that’s part of this problem and expect it to produce twice as much housing now,” Moffatt said. “The feds have supercluster programs to advance other sectors, but I’ve seen nothing on increasing productivity in the housing sector. I think that’s a mistake.”

dwaddell@postmedia.com twitter.com/winstarwaddell

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