Banff Land Use Change for Residential Real Estate

Banff Crag & Canyon - 9 June 2009

By Larissa Barlow Larissa@thecrag.ca

Residential density might be the most controversial part of this phase of the Land Use Bylaw review, but it’s just one aspect of the plan that will shape the town for years to come.

Residents got a chance to look at the plan Saturday outside Nesters during the first of the many neighbourhood consultation sessions the planning department is holding to reach more people and get more input into the process.

With some of the proposed changes senior planner Darren Enns said they want as much input as possible, though there’s no doubt residential density and some rezoning plans will cause a lot of debate.

“We understand this could be pretty controversial,” Enns said. “But it’s better to have debate than not have it at all.”

These ideas aren’t new however. Everything the planning department has come up with to update the Land Use Bylaw comes from the Banff Community Plan, which was approved in February.

But that doesn’t mean the rezoning plan won’t cause a stir. There are sections of the town that they propose to change the zoning to residential to encourage more homes to be built.

The vacant lot on Banff Avenue next to the Banff Hockey Academy house, which is currently zoned as public service lands, could become residential.

A forested area on Marmot Crescent and a single lot on Grizzly Street could also become residential.


A section of Park Avenue that has no homes on one side of the street could be rezoned as well. That land belongs to Parks Canada, so it would be subject to their approval.

There could also be development on the Bow River side of Glen Avenue that has the potential for 50 to 80 new units. And the industrial compound is being eyed as a good place for development, as there’s a large chunk of land right at the entrance that could be used for housing.

“We certainly know there’ll make for a lot of discussion, which is what we want,” manager of planning and development Randall McKay said.

The proposed changes are following the Banff Community Plan’s guidlines, which states the town should “monitor and adjust the densities in residential areas to provide for a sufficient number of dwellings to satisfy the community need.”

“It’s not about density for density’s sake,” Enns said.

Studies have shown the town has a housing shortfall and that’s reinforced by the 150 families on the Banff Housing Corporation’s wait list waiting for homes.

“Anecdotally you can just stand at the (park) front gate and watch people drive in from Canmore to work in Banff,” Enns said.

In order to increase residential density in other ways, the planning department is proposing to relax some of the bylaw’s strict development guidelines.

Those include easing up on the setbacks placed on developable land. Setbacks now, which determine how far you have to be from the road and your neighbour, take away about 50 per cent of the area you can build on. In some cases it would give people just a few extra feet to work with, “that might seem a very small change for people but now you have more space to play with,” Enns said. The change could mean adding an additional bedroom to a home.

There are also plans to allow houses to get a little taller. Banff Avenue buildings will be used as a the upper threshold of what can be done, and homes adjacent to the town’s main street could be allowed to be three storey’s high. In other areas, they could be 2.5 storey’s high.

Other more technical changes includes relaxing the floor area ratio regulations, site coverage changes and an unique take on heritage protection, where any unused density from a small historically significant home could be transferred as an incentive to not demolish the building.

Secondary suites are also on the list to make it legal throughout town in single family or duplex homes.

Parking standards and construction standards are also up for discussion during this phase of the process.

“What we want to do is create a complete community,” Enns said. “We want people to live in Banff at every stage of their life.”

For more information on the bylaw review, visit banff.ca/ourlanduse.