Efficient secondary suite process badly needed: councillor
Posted Sep 9, 2016 7:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The council agenda for Monday is a hefty one.
They haven’t met for a while having been on summer break, but once again a big part of the bulk is applications for more than 50 secondary suites, and it’s starting to wear thin with some councillors.
Ward 13 Councillor Diane Colley-Urqhuart says the continued increase in applications is a sign of the tough times.
“It’s people trying to make ends meet with getting a renter or trying to legalize a suite that’s already there,” she said.
Colley-Urqhuart expects the economic conditions spurring secondary suite applications will continue for at least another year and the only option is to become more efficient with the decision making process.
“With the stroke of a pen the province could change this,” she explained. “They could change legislation from a land use perspective, right across the board, level the playing field, all across Alberta, that this would be discretionary use and people could do this from a property rights perspective.”
She says there have been some informal conversations about requesting the province to pass such legislation, but nothing official has been sent.
