BANFF – The Town of Banff has shut down a Banff bed and breakfast home for illegally operating more commercial rooms than allowed.
The Downtown B&B on Squirrel Street is appealing revocation of its development permit earlier this month to the municipality’s Development Appeal Board (DAB), which is scheduled to hear the case on Thursday (May 20).
“We revoked the development permit for non-compliance of the conditions of the development permit,” said Dave Michaels, the Town of Banff’s planning and development manager.
“I can’t answer too many questions because it’s subject to an appeal.”
Conditions of the development permit for Downtown B&B on the 300 block of Squirrel Street allows only two rooms to be used for commercial accommodation purposes.
However, the Town of Banff indicates advertisements on online booking sites and a followup inspection suggest that five rooms are being used as commercial accommodation units.
A report to go to the DAB also states evidence suggests the house is being used as a duplex, and changes to the basement mechanical area do not have a valid development permit.
In addition, the development permit allows for one kitchen and a maximum of six bedrooms within the single detached home, but the report notes two kitchens and eight bedrooms were found during the inspection.
As a result, the development permit was revoked on May 7. A statutory declaration signed as part of the development permit outlines any non-conformance will result in the development permit being cancelled.
“All uses and allowances granted under the development permit 19DP74 are no longer valid and continued operation of the bed and breakfast home will result in further enforcement action,” states the Town of Banff in the report.
In the appeal documents for the DAB hearing, owner Ashok Pillai said the rooms advertised on the online booking sites aim to give a general idea about the specifications of the rooms offered.
“The photos of two rooms copied from Airbnb and Booking.com to corroborate another alleged violation of law on my part reflect a misrepresentation of our real intention,” he wrote in his appeal documents.
“All that we tried to do was to give the prospective guests an overall view of the inside and outside of the house. Nowhere in the advertisement have we specified that the guests will be allotted exact room shown in the picture.”
Pillai said some rooms in the basement are an office room and children's room, others are used for relatives and friends who occasionally visit.
“Ours is a small family. So we do not need to use all the bedrooms simultaneously. That’s why there are no signs of domestic use in them,” he wrote in the appeal documents.
Pillai said there is also no kitchen in the basement, noting the oven is dysfunctional and dumped in the storage room.
“With regard to the charge of mechanical room, I wish to offer the explanation that the single separating wall was necessitated by the sustained incursion of rats and other rodents into the house from the underdeveloped mechanical area,” he wrote.
In the last few years, there has been growing controversy regarding B&Bs on several fronts, including some owners illegally operating more rooms than permitted or failing to meet live-in owner requirements.
A B&B working group made a series of recommendations to council on B&B regulations.
