The amount of development activity in Banff is at a five-year high, stretching Town staff in the planning and development department beyond its limit.
Development permit numbers have hit 88 so far this year, 30 per cent of which are commercial and the rest residential. It’s anticipated the department will have handled between 90 and 100 applications by the end of this year.
Officials say that’s up from 79 development permits last year, 55 in 2014, 48 in 2013 and 64 in 2012.
“We’re at a five-year high in terms of development activity. It’s been an incredibly busy year with a number of high profile projects,” said Darren Enns, the Town of Banff’s senior planner during council’s review of municipal services. “It’s been literally crushing for staff.”
The department consists of four planning staff, one environmental coordinator and one administrative assistant for a total of six full-time employees – significantly fewer staff than similar mountain resort communities like Aspen, Vail, Whistler and Canmore.
For instance, Canmore has included two-full-time contracts in its 2017 budget, which is awaiting final approval. Two people currently hold these contract positions, which expire in May, and the plan is to extend those positions by a year.
Requests over the years by Banff’s planning and development for additional staff to help with the workload, other than a summer student this year and last year, have not been supported.
In addition, three positions have turned over in the past 18 months, including two development planners and an environmental coordinator. There’s also a new individual serving in a contracted building inspector role.
“Our new staff aren’t being trained,” said Enns. “They are being baptized by fire right now.”
Mayor Karen Sorensen said service review is a great opportunity for council to hear from every department about what’s going on.
“Clearly there’s a lot of development going on. They’re busy,” said the mayor. “We started to see indicators over the year, but it was eye-opening to see the extent of redevelopment that’s going on.”
Past councils, at times, have talked about actually cutting a planning position based on the assumption that reaching Banff’s commercial cap would mean the department wouldn’t be as busy anymore.
Sorensen said that hasn’t panned out and, in fact, the exact opposite has happened.
“I’m grateful past councils waited to see how this was going to pan out, and it’s showing up as more intensification of redevelopment,” she said.
The jump in commercial development activity over the past five years is thought to be related to the growing number of visitors to town, leading businesses to look at new business ventures and redevelopment opportunities given there’s a commercial cap in place.
There has been significant capital reinvestment in a wide range of commercial and institutional projects, such as the railway lands, Banff Centre, Banff Elementary School and construction of the Moose Hotel.
Residential increases are speculated to be linked to increased employment opportunities with the arrival of new businesses, as well as a zero per cent vacancy rate which has made construction of new residential projects more economically feasible. On top of that, land use bylaw density amendments in 2010 have also made way for more infill projects such as conversion of single-family homes to duplexes and apartment buildings.
Building permit revenue was projected to be $150,000 at the start of the year. To date, revenues are $404,000. The estimated construction value of building permits so far is $40,500,000.
“We’re very anxious to turn around and meet those demands of applicants, but it’s been challenging this year with the volumes that we’ve seen,” Enns said. “I think there’s an expectation of ourselves that we can do anything council asks us, we’re just having trouble doing everything asked of us.”
Not only do planners review development and building permits to ensure conformance with legislation, they also meet with applicants prior to submitting development applications, engage with neighbourhoods and the community on active applications, enforce on unauthorized developments, participate in capital project planning, draft policy and legislation for special events, parking management, environmental rebates, and liaise with the business sector and community groups on land-use related issues.
Planning and development is also in a unique situation in that the townsite falls within a national park that comes with added rules, responsibilities and expectations. Planners work with with Parks Canada, which has the final say on all land use issues.
Randall McKay, Banff’s planning and development manager, said all this takes time and staff.
“We continue to experience what seems like at times a relentless Niagara of development-related activity with the absolute bare minimum of human resources,” he said.
Enforcement of the land use bylaw also comes to planning and development, and includes such things as illegal rental accommodations. There are other development-related enforcement issues, as well.
McKay said the planning department shared a compliance officer with the engineering department in the past, but that position was cut during tougher economic times.
“If there’s an issue we don’t have ability to proactively enforce it, we respond to complaints,” McKay said.
Council, acting as the governance and finance committee, has directed administration to draw up a report in 2017 with options for potential re-instatement of a development compliance officer.
Councillor Ted Christensen pushed hard for a compliance officer, saying he has heard many concerns from residents about people not complying with development conditions, and it’s something he and other members of the municipal planning commission have talked about.
“I see this as increasing problem with the number of developments coming in. I think we should deal with this,” he said.
Sorensen said she’s willing to have the discussion in 2017.
“I have no problem discussing it, but by no means with the thought that a new position is going to appear in March after this budget is approved,” she said.
