The “Tim Hortons Test” is a real estate agent thing I heard about recently. Apparently it’s a method of gauging whether a particular house is in a “good neighbourhood” or not.
The way it works is, you use Google Maps to find the closest Tim Hortons to the house. Then you go to that Timmies, and check whether or not the bathroom is locked. If you can just walk into the bathroom, then the house is in a “good” neighbourhood, but if it’s one of those Tims where you have to go to the front counter and ask for a key to get into the bathroom, the house is in a “bad” neighbourhood.
It’s an interesting test, but I do think there’s a much easier way to tell if you are in a bad neighbourhood. It’s particularly easy in Niagara, where determining if you are in a good or bad neighbourhood is as easy as asking one question: Do I live in Welland?
If the answer is yes, then you live in a bad neighbourhood. If you live anywhere else, you’re in a good neighbourhood. Simple.
I kid, I kid. I like Welland. It gets a bad rap for having some seedy areas, but every city has an underbelly.
The place does have its advantages though, one of them being that up until very recently, it was one of the more affordable places to purchase a home in Niagara. But now developers have the audacity to try and turn housing in Welland into some sort of upscale affair.
Now developers have the audacity to try and turn housing in Welland into some sort of upscale affair
A sign went up recently advertising some soon-to-be-built homes in Welland. Because just like everywhere else in Niagara, if there is a vacant scrap of land somewhere, chances are a developer is going to try and build homes on it.
But these new homes in Welland won’t just be any old homes. No, these are going to be situated in an “exclusive enclave” of a “mature” neighbourhood. The lengths this sign is going to in order to distance itself from being in Welland is really something. The word “enclave” literally means, “a place that is different in character from the area surrounding it.”
It’s like the developer knows. They know we know, too. They are, not so subtly, saying “Look, we know these houses are in Welland, but it’s going to be swank, we promise.”
If you have to go this far out of your way to assure people that your “luxury” homes are still going to be fancy even if they are in a less-than-luxurious area, maybe just don’t build them there.
The big picture question here, of course, is why are these types of homes being built in Welland at all?
Of all the places in Niagara that need affordable homes for low and middle income families, Welland is unquestionably at the top of the list. The need for this type of housing in Welland is almost incomprehensibly enormous.
According to the Niagara Region’s community housing page, the average non-senior citizen will spend nine years on the waitlist for a one-bedroom unit in Fort Erie. In Welland, the same person will wait 17 years.
To put that into perspective, 17 years ago, there was no such thing as an iPhone. Cellphones still flipped open, didn’t have touch screens but did have big antennas sticking out the top, and they could only do two things: make phone calls and send SMS text messages 140 characters at a time.
Welland does not need luxury homes in “exclusive enclaves” sold in a “limited release” of eight townhomes. It needs a massive subdivision of affordable homes for normal people. Local people, not GTA-expats who retired to Niagara after becoming accidental millionaires from the sale of their bungalows which they bought 40 years ago for $90,000 and sold last year for $2 million.
Housing developers need to stop trying to turn Welland into Niagara-on-the-Lake and instead understand that it’s a place where regular people want to be able to work and afford to live.
The housing developers don’t seem to understand this. Meanwhile, Welland’s luxury condos themselves seem to be doing their part by collapsing before they can be built.
James Culic checked the Timmies near his house and the bathroom was unlocked. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of this page, or order a Double-Double of trouble in a letter to the editor.
