No progress, again, on secondary suites

Two votes before council end with no change to status quo

After hours of debate, Calgary’s secondary suite issue remains exactly where it was before Monday’s council meeting.

Two notices of motion concerning legal backyard and basement suites failed on Monday, after they were delayed earlier this month when council spent the majority of a meeting deciding the fate of 18 secondary-suite applications.

Having city council listen to Calgarians individually share personal stories and plead their case to build a secondary suite is a process that’s time-consuming and rare for a city of Calgary’s size.

Council discussed Coun. Shane Keating’s pitch to end the painstaking secondary suite process with seven priorities, including regulation dependent on various geographical zones, a mandatory suite registration program and a temporary amnesty for illegal suites.

While Keating believed the motion’s seven points were varied enough to earn support, council ultimately denied it in an 8-7 vote.

“What council has done is, once again, spend hours debating secondary suites — and we haven’t changed one thing,” Keating said after the vote.

“Everybody thinks it should be their way. It’s my way or the highway across the board and that’s what has to stop.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi supported Keating’s motion and expressed disappointment that the “terrible” status quo will remain.

“Nothing changed. Eventually council is going to have to come to grips that this really is a failure.

“We have failed as a council,” he said.

A notice of motion from Coun. Andre Chabot calling for a suite-related plebiscite question in the 2017 municipal election, which administration said would cost about $390,000, failed in a 9-6 vote.

Council also voted down a motion that was brought up on Monday to reinstate the secondary suite application fee that was lifted in the wake of the 2013 floods.

Councillors Chabot, Peter Demong, Sean Chu, Joe Magliocca, Keating and Ray Jones voted in favour of a secondary suite plebiscite.

Despite being signed by eight members of council (councillors Keating, Magliocca, Chu, Jones, Gian-Carlo Carra, Demong, Brian Pincott and the mayor) Keating’s motion for secondary suite reform failed after Pincott withdrew his support.