Business View Civil and Municipal l January 2023

164 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 12 These homes aren’t geared toward low-income housing or social housing. The strategy focused on attainable homes for the workforce. And the need is high; this strategy indicated that by 2040 the area will need 174,000 housing units. The WOWC administers a predominantly rural area. And with the high volume of homes that need to be built and workers coming to the area, the WOWC needs to answer, “What will that look like?” The WOWC’s strategy outlines the need to find ways of engaging politicians, county councils, communities, and employers in the region to discuss housing solutions now. This conversation could be about infill properties, or empty pieces of property, and discussing how to put housing there. It would also include expanding the conversation and getting buy-in from locals to start thinking about this new expansion and the inclusion of new residents, as Gallagher puts it, “We need locals to say yes, I’m willing to talk about development in our backyard rather than saying not in our backyard. And by accomplishing this, get all 15 planners from each county to share their best practices and find solutions to the issues that are starting to arise.” Combining the two priorities of WOWC was a ‘chicken or egg’ situation, where both issues need to be addressed simultaneously. Workers need homes, but they also need to build them. The two priorities are intertwined and can’t be viewed as individual issues. The next priority is improving broadband in rural areas, where it can be notoriously unreliable. Currently, WOWC is working with Swift (Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology) to lay fiber lines in the area. Swift has been working on connecting the area to fiber for two years and has connected 64,000 homes and businesses, which has required serving customers along 4,250 kilometers of road (2,640 miles). The company has invested CA$ 250 million in fiber infrastructure. This has surpassed all previous targets and the project will be completed in 2023, after which the WOWC will be looking at narrowing the gap in cell coverage. A lack of consistent cell coverage in rural areas is a constant issue, with reception dropping quickly. This is a large project for the WOWC to focus on next. The WOWC’s next priority is addressing mental health and addiction in the 15 counties. Recently, they attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference where members sat down with ministers to have