South West Detention Centre

Yesterday morning happened to be the third and final of the public open house/information sessions in Windsor in the initial phase of the new Windsor Jail a.k.a. the South West Detention Centre .

I asked the people there, if the roof in the concept was a Green Roof, and if they were planning on making the structure as energy efficient as possible. They told me, while there are no final plans, they would like a Green Roof, and to follow some LEED guidelines if possible.

This is a great chance to build a showpiece of modern architecture in this city. Rather than fighting the province over the location, which is away from 98% of the population of the City of Windsor, we should be fighting the province to build it properly.

Let’s fight for a Green Roof
Let’s fight for Solar Panels
Let’s fight for Rainwater recycling
Let’s fight for a LEED structure

This constant bickering is embarrassing, and it’s no wonder that the province never listens to Windsor.

The site has been selected off the 8th Concession near the 401, in the middle of nowhere, and the Environment Assessment process is scheduled to be underway from November, 2008 to March, 2009.

So, after listening to NIMBY tears for the last several weeks, I decided to investigate the site of the new jail this morning for myself. As you can see the location is in the middle of nowhere.

Concerned NIMBY’s have taken to spray painting the sign “Help Eddie” & “No Jail”

An aerial view of the immediate area. There is a soccer club immediately south, and along the 8th concession a handful of homes, as well as two oddly located residential streets (one of which – Joy Rd. is visible at the top).

Other that what 100 people? There is next to no residential in the area. It seems to me we couldn’t ask for a better location for the new jail.

Despite the best attempt at fear mongering by the local media, saying the new jail is to be located at Walker Rd. and the 401, as you can see it’s not.

We all know the biggest fear everyone has is that if there is a jail break that the Costco or one of the other big box stores will be robbed. So I took a scientific study and charted the two possible escape routes to Costco from the new jail. As you can see, the closest route is still over 3.5 km away. 🙂

Honestly though, it was embarrassing sitting in that room yesterday listening to the NIMBY’s speak with raised voices to the representatives from Correctional Services.

I haven’t never heard so many ill formed, inarticulate opinions spoken so loudly in public since the Enwin water rate meetings.

It’s a shame that this is the face Windsor’s puts out to the province.

**[EDIT] I forgot to add that if you have any comments, one way or the other, you can send them along though the website, which can be found at: http://ontario.ca/swdc. Don’t forget that even if you agree with the proposed location, you should let the Ministry know. I’m sure they’re hearing all the NIMBY negative comments, but they also need to hear from those who think this is a good location.