Calgary city council will keep rules around building backyard apartments after city administration recommended allowing them in low-density zoning zones across the city.
The move stems from the citywide rezoning board’s repeal, which will take effect Aug. 4 and create “significant inconsistencies” in the suite application process, the administration said, since residential properties will be governed by 16 different zoning districts.
As a result, the city administration recommended listing secondary apartments and backyard apartments as a “permitted use” throughout the city.
The permitted use would exempt the secondary apartments from the development permit requirement and would only need a building permit if all the rules in the bylaw are met.
According to the city administration, 98.9 percent of secondary suite applications were approved last year; there were 6,232 secondary apartments registered in the city in 2025.
After a lengthy public hearing on the issue, the city council voted narrowly Friday to list secondary apartments as a permitted use.
Councilors Ward, Johnston, Jamieson, Tyers, Chabot, Wyness and McLean voted in opposition.
“Council, and I think the public as a whole, has recognized that there’s a reason we should have an automatic approval for basement apartments,” Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said Tuesday. “This is a necessary way to be able to provide housing.”
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Allowing secondary apartments to proceed directly to the building permit process is expected to save up to six weeks of processing time and over $600 in permit fees, the city said, with 2,300 secondary apartments estimated to be built annually as a result.
The recommendation to also allow backyard apartments, however, was dropped by the council.
The council instead approved an amendment from Ward 11. Rob Ward to keep the backyard suites as a vacant use, which would have required a development permit.
“Secondary suites as a permitted use makes sense because they are within the building envelope that already exists,” Ward told Global News. “Whereas when we do a backyard suite, that’s a new building and every lot in town is different.”
Ward said the decision also allows more flexibility for the administration to make adjustments based on the property, while giving neighbors a chance to appeal.
“That’s why we hire professional planners to look at those unique differences of each piece,” Ward said.
Councilors Schmidt, Kelly, Pantazopoulos, Atkinson, Clark and Yule voted against.
Schmidt said the move was intended to cut red tape after all but two of the 192 development permit applications for backyard suites submitted to the city of Calgary last year were approved.
“With all the other work we have to do around Local Area Plans, or the new zoning act, the Calgary Plan, we’re now going to have to look at funding additional staff to do that work because these others are doing work that gets approved almost 99 percent of the time anyway,” he told Global News.
The Council’s decision was disappointing to Stephanie Chipeur, the Azrieli Accelerator Professor in Disability Law and Policy at the University of Calgary.
Chipeur, who uses a wheelchair, asked the city council during the public hearing that the backyard suites remove barriers for those with disabilities and allow them to live near family support.
“Those are the kinds of connections and relationships that we need to live our lives, and if we had to pay for it, it would be extremely expensive and not covered by any provincial support,” she said.
According to Farkas, proposed changes to rules for backyard apartments including an increase in the maximum interior floor area were a sticking point for the council.
“Ultimately, the combination of making it automatic everywhere, but also allowing them to be larger was a bit too much for members of the public as well as the council,” Farkas said.
“Make no mistake, we see backyard apartments as an important part of addressing housing here in Calgary.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
