Secondary Units

[outoftheice]

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

If anything, Calgary rezoning the entire city to allow secondary suites would add a handful of legal units. None of them would be affordable. Rent would easily approach what apartments cost. If it coincided with a crackdown on improperly built and unsafe existing suites it would probably clear up all of Policy Wonk's concerns. The demographic he speaks of would simply transition into undivided houses. As it currently stands there are already times when five or more adults in their early twenties rent a whole house.

The bolded part is why I don't understand the "bad neighbour" argument that seems to be popular in the whole secondary suite debate. Although completely anecdotal, my experience from my 20s was as follows:

The two people I knew that were living in secondary suites both lived in suites where the property owner lived upstairs and had created the suite to supplement their income. In both cases, the property owners set down a fairly strict set of rules about noise, smoking, parking, guests, etc... due to the fact that they lived right above the suites and were concerned about their own quality of life.

On the other hand, I had several friends that rented rooms in houses where the owners had rented out their entire home. These were three bedroom and four bedroom houses in the same single family housing neighbourhoods that people seem so desperate to protect. It was at these houses where parking was always an issue (as each individual owned a car), it was at these houses where we had all of our parties and these houses where there were issues with smoking, noise etc... (due to the fact that a lot of the time not all room-mates knew each other prior to moving in and there always seemed to be one token trouble maker in the mix).

Now like I said, I get that this experience is anecdotal and is unique to me but I don't think it's that far off from the truth. And to me, that's the irony. I think a good number of these "bad neighbour" horror stories we always hear in the secondary suite debate are not due to secondary suites at all. They are due to complacent property owners who have rented out their entire home 'frat house style' and have three or four renters living in the space. So no matter how hard people fight against secondary suites, it's not going to prevent the problems that they seem to associate with the suites as at the end of the day, there is nothing preventing a homeowner from renting out their entire property to a large number of people. Where as allowing secondary suites will allow people an ability to supplement their income and perhaps purchase a home in these nice single family home neighbourhoods that they otherwise couldn't quite afford. To me that's a positive change to the neighbourhood as it's one less house that can be rented out in its entirety. Why that always seems to get lost in the debate, I just don't understand...