Warwick Township has paved the way for Twin Creeks Greenhouses to begin planning to build new housing for its temporary foreign workers.

Mike Corneliesson says right now about 49 people are living in a number of homes near the greenhouse on Zion Line. But the company would like to build homes specifically for the workers who stay in Canada between eight and 11 months of the year to work.

Corneliesson says the homes would have common areas for cooking and relaxing but there would also be larger rooms for the workers.

“Partly COVID changed our mind a lot on how these units rebuilt,” Corneliesson told council. He says the units in communities like Leamington are larger with a lot more people in one unit. During the pandemic, that allowed COVID-19 to sweep through some of the residences.

Corneliesson says when it came to design the homes which will house the Watford workers, they looked at the best practices in Niagara, where the local health unit came up with some standards for the industry.

“These units are much smaller, smaller groups, we started with two meter distances between beds and try to put smaller groups in bedrooms and stuff. And I would say we’re trying to build a more of a premium style housing for our workers. It’s very important for us to have comfortable living spaces for them.”

Twin Creeks has also designed walkways to help workers get safely to the greenhouses without walking on Zion Line, where there are no sidewalks.
The company needed council’s approval to rezone some of the agricultural land beside the greenhouses to build the new housing units. Council agreed to the move.

Corneliesson now will go to the township with a site plan for two new housing units.

He hopes to begin construction on the buildings this year.