Earlier this year, led by Family Services Windsor Essex, the City of Windsor and interested organizations approached MPAC for help with a Housing Supply Challenge project. We are honoured to be working with a dedicated team on developing data solutions to bring more, and alternative, housing supply to the City.

The project group is one of 21 across Canada who were awarded $200,000 through a competitive process to develop a data-driven solution for the federal Housing Supply Challenge and to assist addressing data gaps in housing and help create better informed policy. 

“The work of our project has been to build a proof of concept with two goals in mind,” says Sarah Cipkar, lead researcher for the project. “The first was to identify the feasibility of developing detached Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) from the legal and financial perspective of a homeowner, and second, to assist municipal planning to identify areas within the city where this type of development could have the greatest impact.” 

MPAC’s contribution included valuation expertise with respect to the assessment and classification of the proposed ADUs. Assessment data was then combined with open data, including zoning details, setbacks and road allowances, and analyzed with a GIS mapping tool, incorporating neighbourhood demographics, socio-economic data and specific requirements.

“Affordable, available housing is a clear challenge across the country and one that we are uniquely positioned to support in Ontario,” says Tracy Pringle, Account Manager, MPAC. “The innovative thinking happening as part of this project is a great example of how MPAC’s property data and valuation expertise can contribute to solutions to societal challenges like affordable housing.”

Late in November, the team learned that its prototype was one of 14 selected for additional funding and will share a pool of $22.5 million to implement their data-driven solution!

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