Second Chance Recovery has signed a 10-year lease at this space in the Foothills Industrial Park. (CBC)

A controversial methadone clinic in Calgary has found a permanent home in the Foothills Industrial Park in the city's southeast.

On Friday, the city's development appeal board endorsed a development permit allowing the Second Chance Recovery Clinic to stay there permanently, dismissing complaints lodged by nearby business owners.

The clinic has already been forced from three sites because of public opposition — first from the Greenview Industrial Park and then from the neighbourhoods of Forest Lawn and Braeside.

Lawyer Hugh Ham, who speaks for the clinic, said it has been a tough time for people who use the clinic.

"For the patients, this is huge because there's been enormous stress on them," he said. "The stress of them not knowing whether the clinic was ever going to find a location, and whether they were going to be able to continue treatment — the stress was just terrible for them."

Ham said people have the wrong idea about the clinic's clients.

"Methadone clinics are set up and exist to keep people off street drugs and to allow them to live normal, productive lives, and there are thousands of people in this city who need that kind of help," he said.

"They are not dangerous people. They aren't even threatening people. They're just people trying to get back to a normal life."

The clinic has signed a 10-year lease at the site.

The clinic treats about 500 people trying to kick addictions to heroin and prescription drugs.