Exclusive: majority of Calgarians support secondary suites according to poll

CALGARY – An overwhelming majority of Calgarians are supportive of the development of new secondary suites in Calgary, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The Ipsos poll, conducted for Global News and Corus Entertainment, found 73 per cent of respondents would support the development of new suites, subject to regulations.

Support of secondary suites was found to be well above the majority in all city quadrants.

In addition, three-quarters of Calgarians say they’d be okay with a next door neighbour building a legal suite.

However, acceptance was slightly higher among current renters (81%) than current homeowners (71%).

Desired Conditions/Regulations

When it comes to the types of conditions and regulations Calgarians would want to see, most (80%) cited suites being compliant with fire codes as being important to them.

A majority also say having separate entrances (56%) and using off-street parking (56%) as their primary concerns.

Only about three-in-ten (29%) residents say it is important to them that City approval includes restrictions on the size of the suite.

Information from The City

A vast majority (89%) of Calgarians say they would like the City of Calgary to provide more information about secondary suites.

Only nine per cent of respondents disagreed.

Exclusive Global News Ipsos polls are protected by copyright. The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Global News Ipsos.” This poll was conducted between June 18th and 23rd, 2015 with a sample of 507 adults living in the City of Calgary and is accurate to within +/- 5.0 percentage points had all City of Calgary adults been surveyed.

BELOW: Complete Secondary Suites poll from Ipsos