City needs courage on secondary suites

I write a monthly column for the Calgary Sun. Here is an excerpt from my February article:

Over the next few weeks, you will hear a lot of discussion and debate around secondary suites in Calgary.

It’s no secret that I strongly believe we need a change.

Currently, there are somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 suites in Calgary.

No one knows the real number, because the vast majority of them are illegal.

What we do know is that they are in every neighbourhood in the city, and that most of the tenants are good neighbours.

But we also know that these people — our neighbours — live in a world without the protections that the rest of us enjoy.

If their landlord is abusing them, if the smoke detectors don’t work, if there’s no heat, if there is mould or a mouse infestation, they have nowhere to turn.

The city only has one option, which is to rip out the stove and kick them out of their homes.

Furthermore, if the city were to crack down on these illegal suites and somehow close them all down, we would have an affordable housing crisis like none we have ever seen.

In a world where we are proud to create a few hundred new units of affordable housing per year, how would we ever replace tens of thousands of units?

So, we’ve created a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation that treats thousands of our fellow citizens in a way we would not want to be treated ourselves.

There are many who argue that allowing any homeowner to apply for a suite would irrevocably change neighbourhoods, would lead to a parking nightmare, and would have the “wrong kind” of people move in.

While I disagree that having renters is bad for a community, it’s important to note that these arguments have nothing to do with secondary suites in particular.

If an owner wants to rent a house to members of a university fraternity, or if a family has four teenage kids and nine cars on the street, they are completely within their rights to do so and normal bylaws apply.

If they are bad neighbours, people can call 311 and complain about noise, waste, unkempt yards, and so on.

It’s only by adding a stove that suddenly a whole new set of rules apply.

Recall the woman with MS who wanted to put a suite in so that she could have a tenant help with yard work.

It cost her thousands of dollars and many months, culminating in her having to come before city council and plead her case in front of 15 strangers, live on TV, explaining the intimate details of her life and begging for the right to do with as she needed with her own property.

This isn’t right.

My proposal to council is that we allow homeowners across the city to apply for a permit for a secondary suite if they desire, subject to three criteria...

Read the full article at the Calgary Sun.

- Mayor Nenshi