As Calgary city hall receives hundreds of speakers at a public hearing this week for the repeal of blanket rezoning, let’s turn the clock back for a moment to our last big housing controversy: secondary suites.

There was a great deal of unease at the idea of giving homeowners a pathway to legalize secondary suites and making it easier to bring illicit units up to code.

Safety was an obvious factor. At least one fatal fire in the late oughts served partly as a political impetus to bring more basement apartments in line with regulations.

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Time was another. Homeowners wanting to legally build secondary suites were forced to parade in front of city councillors, often having to share very personal stories of their family struggles to justify renovations.

Those opposed to streamlining the bureaucratic process for secondary suites and making it possible to build them citywide argued it would destroy neighbourhoods and aggravate existing parking problems.

This month marks eight years since Calgary’s secondary suite reforms, with the data showing very interesting patterns.

Despite being legal everywhere, most of the applications have come from outlying neighbourhoods, as opposed to those in older areas,........

© Calgary Herald