3 things to watch at city council today

Monday's combined city council meeting includes 20 land use matters.

If council doesn't drastically reduce the size of the agenda as the meeting starts, this one has the potential to run over into a second day.

Secondary suites

Coun.Druh Farrell, and four other members of council, had planned to bring forward a motion at Monday's meeting to make secondary suites legal in certain parts of the city, including their own wards.

However, they've decided to drop it from the agenda so they can build more public support for the idea and bring it back to council in September.However, there will still be plenty of discussion about secondary suites at this meeting.

In fact, 11 applications for secondary suites will be debated by city council Monday. The agenda indicates some enjoy the support of the applicants' neighbours while others apparently do not.

What's "fun"about these applications for zoning changes is thatan applicant can sometimeszip through the room in a couple of minutes while other applicants can find their plans debated by the entire city council for an hour or two.

Pets:Part 2

Coun.Diane Colley-Urquhart put in a motion at the last council meeting on limiting the number of pets a person can own, but it was not debated as she was forced to leave the meeting due to ill health.

Her revised motion calls on administration to do a report on the merits of limiting the number of "dogs, cats and other species" that can be allowed in a single residence,exemptions to such a measureand the implications of such a change.

This comes after a several dozen dogs in distress were taken out of a house in the S.E. recently.

Shattered shelters

Many Calgarians might be familiar with the early morning sight of a bus shelter with shattered glass.

Coun.Andre Chabot is tired of it. He says some shelters on Madigan Drive in his ward are shattered very frequently.He thinks it's time for a change.

There's a perception that this is a waste of tax dollars but in fact, the cost of replacement is borne by the private company which provides the shelters.

Chabot wants council to approve exploring the use of other materials to reduce the damage and for administration to examine using things like video technology to find vandals. If council agrees, a report would come back by January.