From the Calgary Herald – Feb 26, 2009

The list of things I don’t understand is long–the popularity of Nickelback, fighting in hockey, how some people thought the film The Reader was any good. Number one for me this week is a question about our city council –how come they can make momentous decisions with minimal consultation (the west LRT routing and spending a billion dollars at their first meeting after the election), yet take forever to do easy stuff?

Most Calgarians would agree that affordable housing is a major priority, and, to be fair, council has made some very encouraging moves in this direction, buying buildings and trying to increase units one project at a time. However, the solution to affordable housing lies not only in the city building and buying social housing units, but in major policy changes that involve the private and non-profit sectors. The most important of these is inclusive zoning, which means all new developments must include an affordable housing component.

Council seemed to understand this and, shortly after the last civic election, asked administration to investigate. That was 13 months ago. Six months later, they set up the “cross-departmental working group” to examine four options. Six months after that, they agreed to extend the work of the group. The group worked feverishly, even having a one-day work-shop and council has now approved their recommendation to . . . write a letter to the province.

No, scratch that. They actually agreed to direct administration to draft a letter that they will look at again in June (good letter-writing takes time!) Then, assuming they don’t have any proofreading changes, this letter would go to the province, which might consider looking at it when the legislature sits next spring, and then it would come back to council, but that would be close to the 2010 election, so council might not want to take action, and so it goes. Particularly galling is that all of this may be unnecessary. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs confirmed they had had no discussion with the city about it. She further suggested that the current Municipal Government Act allows municipalities to adopt inclusive zoning to encourage affordable housing. Why, then, are we going through all this drama?

I suggest that this is re-ally because council lacks the political will to make these changes. Indeed, in 2009′s best example so far of delayed barn-door closing, Ald. Joe Connelly suggested that affordable housing is not something the city should even be thinking about, since it’s a provincial responsibility. Be that as it may, the province long ago dumped part of this file on municipalities, and the city now operates more than 10,000 affordable housing units. Another piece of evidence of this council’s lack of seriousness on this file is its complete inaction on secondary suites. Legalizing such suites across the city is what Ald. Brian Pincott, chair of the Calgary Housing Company, calls “the proverbial low-hanging fruit.”

But council has never even had this debate. Never mind that it commissioned a committee that examined communities across Canada and the U. S. and found no issues in cities that allowed these suites. Edmonton’s city council acted quickly on this matter once elected in 2007, establishing legal basement suites in a wide swath of the city, where there were few issues. Earlier this month, council legalized them across their city. Councillor Don Iveson told me there was very little controversy about the latest decision–none of the nightmare scenarios painted by opponents came to pass, and citizens understood this was the right thing to do.

And it is the right thing to do. Legalizing secondary suites will increase our stock of affordable housing, help homeowners pay their mortgages and allow seniors to stay longer in their homes.

Five aldermen (Pincott, Connelly, Druh Farrell, John Mar, Joe Ceci) told the Better Calgary Campaign during the 2007 election they favoured basement suites throughout the city. Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who did not answer the survey, has been in favour of this in the past and Mayor Dave Bronconnier has referred to supporting incentives to build suites throughout the city. If they can convince one more alderman to come on board, they have a majority. Will they have the political will to use it?

Nenshi teaches At Mount Royal College’s Bissett School Of Business. www.bettercalgary.ca

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