Second Chance Recovery has preliminary approval to move to this space in the Foothills Industrial Park. (CBC)

Relocation plans for a Calgary methadone clinic are again on hold after three appeals of the centre's approval were filed with the city.

Second Chance Recovery treats about 500 people trying to kick addictions to heroin and prescription drugs.

After community opposition forced the clinic from the Greenview Industrial Park and then from the neighbourhoods of Forest Lawn and Braeside, clinic officials said on Monday they have the city's blessing to move to the Foothills Industrial Park.

However, three nearby businesses in the southeast area have filed appeals with the city's development board, which means a hearing must be held before the clinic can open.

"Essentially the objection is concerns about the kind of people who will be patients at the clinic — a concern that they somehow represent a threat to other people, which is not the case," Hugh Ham, a lawyer for Second Chance, said on Tuesday.

Ham said the centre's operators met with nearby business owners to explain how clients see a doctor at the clinic, but methadone is dispensed through a pharmacy and is not stored at the site.

Ham said the development appeal process is supposed to address planning issues, not social objections.

"Complaints about dogs barking, and babies crying, and people parking in the wrong place. And so when they get any opportunity to complain, they take it and being able to appeal to a board like the Subdivision [and] Development Appeal Board, just gives them an opportunity to vent," Ham said.

The appeal hearing will be heard on Nov. 27.