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Calgary city council will maintain the rules around building backyard suites, after city administration recommended making them a permitted use across low-density zoning districts across the city.
The move stems from council’s repeal of citywide rezoning, which is set to take effect on Aug. 4, and create “significant inconsistency” in the application process for a suite, administration said, as residential properties will be governed by 16 different zoning districts.
As a result, city administration recommended listing both secondary suites and backyard suites as “permitted use” across the city.
Permitted use would exempt secondary suites from requiring a development permit, and would only need a building permit if all the rules in the bylaw are met.
According to city administration, 98.9 per cent of secondary suite applications were approved last year; there were 6,232 registered secondary suites in the city in 2025.
After a lengthy public hearing on the matter, city council narrowly voted Friday to list secondary suites as a permitted use.
Councillors Ward, Johnston, Jamieson, Tyers, Chabot, Wyness and McLean voted in opposition.
“Council, and I think the public as a whole, has recognized that there’s a reason that we should have an automatic approval for basement suites,” Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said Tuesday. “This is a needed way to be able to provide housing.”
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Allowing secondary suites to proceed directly to the building permit process is expected to save up to six weeks of processing time and over $600 in permit fees, city administration said, with 2,300 secondary suites estimated to be built per year as a result.
The recommendation to also make backyard suites permitted, however, was quashed by council.
Council instead approved an amendment from Ward 11 Coun. Rob Ward to keep backyard suites as discretionary use, which would require a development permit.
“Secondary suites as permitted use makes sense because it’s within the building envelope that already exists,” Ward told Global News. “Whereas when we do a backyard suite, that’s a new building and every parcel in the city is different.”
Ward said the decision also allows more flexibility for administration to make adjustments based on the property, while giving neighbours a chance to appeal.
“That’s why we hire professional planners to look at those unique differences of every lot,” Ward said.
Councillors Schmidt, Kelly, Pantazopoulos, Atkinson, Clark and Yule voted against.
Schmidt said the move was meant to cut red tape as all but two of the 192 development permit applications for backyard suites submitted to the City of Calgary last year were approved.
“With all the other work we have to do around Local Area Plans, or the new zoning bylaw, the Calgary Plan, we will now need to look at funding additional staff to do that work because these others are doing work that is approved almost 99 per cent of the time anyway,” he told Global News.
Council’s decision was disappointing for Stephanie Chipeur, the Azrieli Accelerator Professorship in Law & Disability Policy at the University of Calgary.
Chipeur, who uses a wheelchair, advocated to city council during the public hearing that at-grade backyard suites remove barriers for those with disabilities and allow them to live close to family supports.
“It is those kinds of connections and relationships that we need in order to live our lives, and if we had to pay for it, it would be enormously expensive and it’s not covered by any provincial supports,” she said.
According to Farkas, proposed changes to the rules for backyard suites including an increase the maximum interior floor area were a sticking point for council.
“Ultimately, the combination of making it automatic everywhere but also allowing for them to be bigger was a bit too much for members of the public as well as council,” Farkas said.
“Make no mistake, we see backyard suites as an important part of addressing housing here in Calgary.”
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