BANFF – The Town of Banff plans to pursue options for a land swap with Parks Canada for an intercept lot outside town boundaries to help deal with traffic congestion in town even though the federal agency has repeatedly slammed the brakes on the idea.
Council set aside $30,000 during the 2023 budget to hire a third-party consultant to investigate and identify parcels of land within the existing townsite boundary that could be used in a trade or swap for land outside of the existing Town of Banff boundary to create an east entrance intercept parking lot.
But in a clear letter to Banff town council, Banff National Park superintendent Sal Rasheed indicated Parks Canada has no interest in a land swap because no land outside of town boundaries will be made available due to existing policy and legislation.
Despite this Feb. 10 letter from the park’s top bureaucrat, Mayor Corrie DiManno said council’s plan for a consultant to look into a land swap is going ahead.
“We will continue to have to try and work together on this complex issue that we’ve been working on for decades and that motion around the land swap will proceed,” she said.
“It’s important that council exhaust every avenue and possibility and we haven’t tried this one yet. It’s worthwhile to get information and come up with a proposal and go through with that conversation.”
Rasheed said the federal agency remains committed to working with the Town of Banff to explore transportation and parking solutions, including a parkade, within the established boundary of the townsite – but an intercept lot outside town boundaries is off the table.
He said the approved 2022 management plan affirms that development will continue to be limited to the existing boundaries identified by Parks Canada policy and federal law – a priority that has been strongly supported for decades by Canadians, including during the recent management plan review.
“Parks Canada’s long standing position on intercept parking for both national park communities and ski areas is that proposals for use and development outside of already established boundaries on undeveloped park land pose environmental, policy and legislative challenges,” he said.
“Parks Canada cannot approve proposals that fail to demonstrate conformance with applicable national park policy and law.”
Rasheed said the town boundaries were fixed in legislation to ensure, in part, that development did not encroach on these sensitive areas.
He said they contain cultural sites, sensitive montane ecosystem habitat, and a wildlife corridor critical to the park’s ecological health and preservation as a UNESCO world heritage site.
“It also cannot be overlooked that through various downtown reconstruction efforts and planning decisions of the Town of Banff over recent years, parking throughout the town has been reduced,” said Rasheed.
On the matter of a potential land swap between the municipal and federal governments and council’s indications that an existing precedent has been set with ski areas, Rasheed said he wanted to clarify there was not a like-for-like swap of equal amounts of land between Parks Canada and the ski operators.
Rather, he said, there was an overall reduction in each ski areas’s commercial leasehold size through the return of lands to Parks Canada determined to have ecological value, which was the result of a process prescribed in the minister-approved ski area management guidelines.
“If a precedent exists, it is one in which the federal government has reduced commercial leaseholds in national parks and capped development within leasehold boundaries when it serves ecological purposes,” said Rasheed.
“The reality is that not all leaseholders are the same. The requirements, roles and enabling policy, and regular framework for a commercial operator and a municipality are vastly different. Both are treated fairly with the differences in their respective agreements with the federal government clearly outlined.”
DiManno said the Town of Banff is not asking to expand its boundaries, but is asking Parks Canada to make the intercept lot outside town boundaries a Parks Canada-driven initiative on its own land.
“The Town of Banff has actually increased parking by over 600 stalls in the last decade, but we know this is a short-term solution and we really need a partnership with Parks Canada to explore solutions to address the continued growth in visitors,” she said.
“I think that we’re eager to hear their plans coming out of the expert panel related to mobility hubs and we continue to ask if a mobility hub or intercept parking or a parkade could be a Parks Canada initiative, rather than a Town of Banff initiative.”
Council during budget discussions also directed administration to begin discussions with Liricon around how to expedite the construction of the north-side stalls and/or reconfigure the existing Fenlands parking lot to increase the number of parking stalls in town.
As for construction of a parkade there on train station lands, DiManno said the Town was grateful to Liricon for use of the existing 500-stall lot on the south side of the track, but the reality is that it is not municipal land.
“Ideally, when we look long-term, it’s going to be important that we have that security into the future,” she said.
DiManno said parking solutions, including a parkade, would be discussed when Town council meets with Rasheed on March 23.
“I look forward to hearing their ideas and solutions,” she said.
“It’s really important we all come together. I do believe we all want to solve this issue and let’s meet and discuss and try and get this solved.”
Rasheed said Parks Canada, the Town of Banff and its tourism partners have achieved great things together; the development and expansion of a sustainable regional public transit system that continues to grow is a partnership to be proud of.
He said Parks and the Town worked together last summer with other partners to tackle congestion in the town and the park, implementing new communication approaches that improved travel times during peak periods through the town and up to Mountain Avenue.
“We look forward to continuing and building upon those efforts this summer,” he said.
“We will also continue to work with adjacent land managers on regional parking solutions aimed at encouraging more sustainable people movement, to, from and within the national park through the implementation of the commitments in the approved management plan.”
