Lakeshore and UWindsor announce partnership aimed at solving wastewater, housing challenges

The mayor of Lakeshore says she hopes a new partnership with the University of Windsor will lead to innovative solutions for the municipality's beleaguered wastewater system and other challenges, such as meeting Lakeshore's housing needs. 

The municipality signed a memorandum of understanding with the university on Tuesday.

"Lakeshore's reached a critical juncture in our 26-year history, and we know we've got some real challenges ahead of us," Mayor Tracey Bailey said.

"So we have a great opportunity to marry the expertise of our staff here at the Municipality of Lakeshore with the University of Windsor ... to begin looking at innovative and creative solutions for us."

The partnership is broad in scope and includes research partnerships supported by national funding programs, community-based projects, student placements and initiatives through the University's Centre for Cities.

While nothing has prevented such collaborations in the past, the signing of the memorandum demonstrates a new level of intentionality, said Judy Bornais, the university's associate vice-president external.

Pooling resources to access more funding

"We already have, now, students that are going to be intentionally hired," she said.

"The number of meetings that are happening obviously increases, and that's really exciting because then in each of those sessions you start thinking of other opportunities that you can engage [in] and potential opportunities that can happen in the future as well."

The university and the municipality each also have access to funding sources that the other does not, so pooling their resources gives them access to more grants and loans, Bornais said. 

The memorandum of understanding does not involve any financial commitments, Bailey said, but Lakeshore struck a separate partnership with the Centre for Cities in March, using $2 million in federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) dollars. 

That initiative will see the centre complete a series of projects aimed at helping Lakeshore achieve the milestones in its HAF plan. 

"Far too often municipalities go outside and seek consultants and external individuals to do the work," Bailey said.

"We have a whole team of professional talented people at the University of Windsor to help us come up with solutions for our problems. So we've chosen to go that road. I think it's a brilliant one. I think that we're going to be setting the stage as the municipality for others to really watch what we're doing."

Lakeshore is facing significant costs to update both its water and wastewater systems.

They have been chronically underfunded for the past 20 years, Bailey said in a news release in October, when councillors approved a new water and wastewater master plan. And they need significant investment to respond to environmental and regulatory concerns and higher than expected population growth.

Implementing the plan is expected to cost approximately $465 million over 20 years when adjusted for inflation and other financial factors, the release said.

Apart from helping the municipality address challenges such as those with its water system, the partnership with the university will also provide students with opportunities to do co-op and internship placements in the area, making them more likely to stay in southwestern Ontario, Bornais said — and that helps contribute to the talent pool for the municipality and the region as a whole.

The MOU is the second such memorandum between the university and a municipality.  

It signed one with the Municipality of Chatham-Kent in the fall and is planning to announce another one shortly, Bornais said.

"Absolutely part of the goal is to be able to actually engage with all of our municipalities," she said.