Home is Here, The City of Calgary’s Housing Strategy highlights The City's commitment to make building market and affordable housing easier and faster, support providers and developers and partner with levels of government to leverage funding.

Calgary is growing at a record rate and the housing need is substantial. According to The City's Housing Needs Assessment, one in five Calgary households cannot afford where they currently live. We need more homes, and we are taking action.

More homes in all shapes and sizes in all neighbourhoods will help support Calgary’s prosperity now and for future generations. Backyard suites are an important element to help achieve two key outcomes from the housing strategy:

• Outcome 1: Increase the supply of housing to meet demand and increase affordability.
• Outcome 4: Ensure diverse housing choice to meet the needs of equity-deserving populations.

Housing Accelerator Fund

The Government of Canada’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) provides incentive funding for local governments aimed at increasing the supply of housing. This fund is meant to support municipalities with new and transformational change.

Due to the positive progress towards our targets, Calgary was labeled as one of the top-performers and awarded additional funding. This funding has created the opportunity for The City of Calgary to launch a Backyard Suite Incentive Program to ignite a wave of growth in backyard suites over the next two years.

What is a backyard suite?

A backyard suite is defined as a fully self-contained residential unit with its own entrance, kitchen, bathroom, living, and sleeping area located on the same lot as an existing detached or semi-detached home. The suite may be a stand-alone structure at ground level or built above a garage.

Incentive program

In Calgary, backyard suites remain an underutilized housing solution, despite their potential to provide homeowners with flexible options such as rental income, multigenerational living arrangements, and inclusive housing for equity-deserving communities. They also provide housing that gently increases density, while maintaining the character of existing communities.

The intent for the backyard suites incentive program is to create an improved path for Calgarians to construct backyard suites, by considering a range of possible supports:

• Providing educational guidance to help homeowners navigate feasibility and design.
• Offering financial compensation/support to offset costs.
• Connecting design options to Calgarians to reduce time, complexity and costs.
• Reduce impacts of the permitting process.

Your feedback is the key to developing a meaningful and effective incentive program to support housing in Calgary.