Calgary secondary suites scoreboard: 21 approved, 5 rejected in marathon council meeting

Calgary city council had to face down 26 secondary suite applications on Monday and voted in favour of 21.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi made no bones about his distaste for the painstaking process, which sees him and Calgary's 14 city councillors deliberate and vote on each application, one by one.

This unusual process for a city of Calgary's size requires hours of time froma council that is among the most highly compensated in the country.

The mayor earnsmore than$216,000 in annualsalary, andcouncillorsearn more than $115,000 each.

• Marathon meeting Monday as Calgary looks at secondary suite applications

Council members don't get paid overtime but many city staff members do, and ithas been estimated that comes with about $10,000 in additional costs for an extra four hours.

It also requires members of the public to sit and wait, often for hours sometimes days for their chance to speak in favouror against a given application.

"People get to take a day or two days off work to come down and ask to be able to do something with their own property," the mayor said.

"The whole thing is really kind of silly."

But Coun. Andre Chabot sees it differently.

He bristled at the suggestion of changing the process for secondary suites, specifically, just because they are relatively small projects, notingother types of land-use amendments are handled directly by council.

"I think everyone should be offered the same opportunity to speak in favour of their project or in opposition to a particular project," he said.

"I don't think the scale of the project should be what regulates whether this process is applied. My opinion is that it should be all or none, and I think it's a great process."

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