Basement Suites "Should they be legalized?"

Diane:

i thought you mike like the following in consideration of your upcoming townhall meeting on basement suites.

Currently, since there are no building codes specifically designed for Basements suites in Alberta, Municipalities have by default, been applying building codes which were originally designed for Duplexes and Apartments instead - which in most cases, means that Municipalities do not have the power to approve basement suites, since they cannot meet these codes
For some people, this is a bit of a “square peg in a round hole” type approach, which has lead to some impossibilities in terms of compliance.

For example, duplex and apartment building codes require an 8 foot ceiling, and a separate furnace in each living unit. Since most houses built decades ago, were not required back then to build 8 foot ceilings in the basement, most basement suites today have ceilings somewhat lower than 8 feet, and thus it is impossible for a homeowner to comply with this requirement (or the two furnace requirement).

Consequently, because municipalities do not have the tools in their toolbox ( appropriate building codes which would allow approval) this forces the municipality to refuse approval of the unit, even though it might be correctly zoned and a perfectly acceptable suite otherwise, and even though affordable housing is always a very big problem.

Thus, society is left with this big dilemma of the so-called illegal suites – suites which have been built without municipal approvals in place, which essentially therefore have not then been inspected and may have other safety and financial issues worrisome to all.

Should these suites be legalized? - if they can be done so in a manner which improves safety and life-and-death requirements, but reduces (or grandfathers) requirements on “nice to have” but non life-threatening issues, such as requiring an 8 foot ceiling? In other words, if we allow lower ceilings in return for requiring installation of smoke detectors, would we then allow - and could we get - homeowners to have their suites approved in a proper manner?

The approach, is to give the power to municipalities through the Provincial building codes, to be ABLE to make a decision on whether or not the suite should be allowed (once it has come to their attention), something they currently cannot do.

In return for more pragmatic conditions of approval, safety improvements WILL be required, such as smoke detectors, and windows large enought to crawl out of. However, these requirements are low-cost, and will greatly enhance safety, and thus are not seen as an impediment when compated to the alternate case. Readers should be aware that this is an extremely controversial issue. In fact, I have been warned many times over the years, that it is political suicide for me to have tackled this issue at all - first on Calgary City Council, and now at the Provincial level.

This is much too important an issue to keep sweeping it under the carpet in my opinion!

NIMBY issues (you can do it somewhere else, just Not in My Back Yard!) seem to be the biggest obstacle, the exclusionary desire to “zone” or eliminate the housing for “those” people as a roundabout way of making sure there are no undesirables in the community, who might threaten the children of the community.

Some apartment owners object and do not want the competition either……and social advocates insist the government should be building much better housing for the poor or buying them their own houses in the first place. Few jurisdictions anywhere in the world have really tackled this issue – although we all know that across North American, millions of people are probably living in such units.