City council is assessing the secondary suite application process and will look at ways to update the land use bylaw and permit process on Monday.

Under the current rules, homeowners in some areas can get a development permit through the city to put in a suite but in areas that are not zoned for suites, property owners must ask council for permission to proceed with the permit process.

Last December, council directed Administration to put together a proposal to reform the secondary suite process.

The amendments include a change to the land use bylaw to make secondary suites a discretionary use.  The change would give property owners the ability to develop a suite without council approval and instead allow them to work with city planning staff to obtain building and development permits.

Under the new proposal, all existing and new secondary suites would also be required to enlist in the city’s Suites Registry Program, which keeps track of suites that meet Alberta’s Safety Code requirements.

More than 1000 letters have been sent to council regarding the secondary suite process and a number of people are expected to speak on the issue on Monday.

Speakers will be given five minutes each to address council and must focus on the bylaw and it’s planning merits.

Mayor Neheed Nenshi says he expects emotions to run high and called on council to be thoughtful during the discussion.

“One of the most interesting things I heard in the public hearing today is ‘why the rush?’ Well, I’ve been advocating on this issue since 2004. We’ve had 14 years of public discussion on this, we’ve had people die in basement fires, in unsafe suites, while we continue to dither and so I don’t really see 14 years as being particularly a rush,” said Nenshi. “The community associations that are complaining about the rush are precisely those who’ve been engaging on this exact issue for years with us, this is just a delaying tactic as far as I’m concerned.”

The University of Calgary’s Student Union is calling on the city to provide safer suites for students.

“At the University of Calgary we are a commuter campus, 90 percent of our students don’t live on campus so it’s very important to us to ensure that our students have a safe place to live,” said Puncham Judge.

Some people say there is not enough consultation with the community and that the suites create additional traffic in residential areas.

“There’s a significant increase in traffic. Garbage collection, the bins are all overflowing, they’re not getting extra bins. But parking is a huge concern in the area and just the increase of traffic and people,” said Mary Hajdu, St. Andrew’s Height resident.

“I’m hoping that the city streamlines it somehow, that the people have a vote,” said Rob Kos.

City administration says there are currently 170,316 parcels of land that will be affected by the proposed changes.

“Every single person who owns a piece of land has the right, by law, to apply for a change in the use of that land and there’s nothing council can do to change that, every single person has the right to apply. The question is should every person apply to city council with all of the attendant red tape, cost and bureaucracy of that or should there be a system where they apply to administration, which is, by the way, the case in every other city in Canada except Burnaby,” said Nenshi.

The city says there are about 16,000 illegal suites in Calgary and that a two year amnesty period has been proposed to get those into compliance.

“If you have legal suites on the market then renters have less incentive to rent an illegal suite, it’s a simple as that. And as we heard from the Student’s Union at the University of Calgary today, these illegal suites are already getting premium rents and so if we can actually give people a safe alternative for the same rent, who is going to go to the illegal one? That’s why the stickers and the registry, it’s very simple, but the stickers and the registry are actually the critical part to this proposal,” said the mayor.

To read more on the secondary suite Planning and Development Report, click HERE.