BANFF – A working group struck to examine bed and breakfast home regulations recommends all B&B businesses be treated equally, regardless of heritage status.
Banff’s land use bylaw currently allows variances to B&B applications for heritage preservation reasons only, but the working group wants that clause removed.
However, the group did say that there are some things that shouldn’t be varied at all – the requirement that B&Bs homes have live-in owners or the overall B&B cap and district-by-district quota.
“What we wanted to see is a level playing field between existing bed and breakfast operators in non-heritage homes versus heritage homes,” Ken McMurdo, a member of the working group, said in a presentation to Municipal Planning Commission on Wednesday (Feb. 26).
The recommendation was supported by most of the group, but not by two members.
One believed that B&B regulations should be met in their entirety, and that only heritage properties should be eligible for variance. The other indicated that district allocations could be varied, depending on circumstances.
The working group brought up the issue of Abegweit, a 1913 property at 136 Bow Ave. that is rented as a vacation home on the grounds of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.
“What we reflected on was the Whyte Museum heritage home, running that place with an absentee owner,” McMurdo said.
“It is totally against what a B&B is. We wanted to make sure there was no double standards on heritage versus regular operators.”
Commissioner Corrie DiManno, a council representative on MPC, said she sat on the commission when the B&B application was presented for Abegweit, which is also known as the Crosby Residence.
She said all the proceeds from the rentals go to support this heritage property and the programs and collection of the Whyte Museum.
“I hear you want it to be a level playing field …but we didn’t just do that on a whim,” she said.
“The concept was this will help to pay to keep this building sustainable and to help with the renovations, so it was a bit of a model there; that one would help finance the other.”
Leslie Taylor, a former Banff mayor and councillor who facilitated the working group discussions, said the committee also had a lot of discussion about the difference between a municipally designated home and a heritage home that’s on the inventory list.
“In other words, someone that’s signed on to keep it as a heritage home for ever and ever versus one that has just been identified on the inventory, which doesn’t actually guarantee that you’re going to keep it as a heritage home forever,” she said.
“Being on the heritage inventory you might get your variance and then change the heritage status of it later with major renovations or whatever. I think the committee understood the intent of the existing bylaw, but didn’t agree with it, and other groups may feel differently.”
The Banff Heritage Corporation will also get a chance to comment on the B&B’s work group’s recommendations on Thursday (March 12) and be asked by administration to provide feedback to council.
Heritage is one of the council’s key priorities for 2019-2023, with a goal of increasing the number of protected municipal historical resources from 13 to 17.
To that end, the Town plans to do a heritage master plan, which could look at different options to preserve heritage properties such as density transfer programs, conducting a heritage district-corridor analysis or presenting options for financial incentive programs.
Aside from commercial growth management and the imbalance between commercial and residential development in the late 1990s, how to better regulate the proliferation of B&Bs was one of the single biggest issues of the time.
