A new restaurant on Bear Street by the owners of Park Distillery has been given approval, with the developers volunteering to scale back construction hours so as not to hurt a neighbouring yoga business.
On Wednesday (Jan. 17), the Municipal Planning Commission approved a development permit for a new restaurant at 205 Bear Street by Banff Hospitality Collective – a family-run restaurant ownership group.
The company purchased 229 square metres of commercial space from the neighbouring property at 203 Bear Street, which was awarded space in a previous development lottery.
The sale price for square footage isn’t being disclosed.
Stavros Karlos, a spokesperson for Banff Hospitality Collective, was mum on exact restaurant plans, other than to say it’s different than any other project the company has done.
“It’s different than anything else in Banff,” he said, noting construction is expected to start this fall-winter and open mid to late 2019. “We’re working to provide wonderful and unique culinary experiences.”
The 229 square meters will be used to extend the existing property, currently home to a series of offices, at the rear of the site. The new restaurant will also include second level patio seating.
At the MPC meeting, Dave Garrow, who owns Rocky Mountain Yoga next door, said construction noise from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. would severely hurt his business, which provides yoga instruction and other related health and wellness services.
He said past experiences with construction noise has resulted in refunds of 20 per cent of client fees and cancelled classes, noting 90 per cent of clients are from Banff and tourists make up the rest.
Garrow asked MPC to put a condition on the development permit to make sure there’s no construction on Sundays and to modify weekday construction hours – involving hammering, sawing or use of any machine tools or equipment that lead to noise beyond the site – from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“From 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., we cannot run classes and if we do, we run the risk of refunds, so our business name is going to go down,” he said.
“All we’re asking is four hours at the end of our day to try to salvage our business.”
Karlos said he understood Garrow’s concerns, noting there will be no construction on Sundays, but losing four hours a day of construction time on weekdays would push the project back and make it more expensive.
However, after he heard Garrow’s ongoing concerns and what amounted to a private negotiation in a public meeting, he agreed to have that condition placed on the development permit.
“We’re ok with the 5 p.m. restriction as long as it mirrors language that’s in the Community Standards Bylaw,” he said.
On a 5-2 vote, however, MPC decided against imposing the condition, preferring to see Rocky Mountain Yoga and Banff Hospitality Collective come to that agreement on their own, perhaps through a construction plan agreement.
Councillor Chip Olver and chairman Bryan Smythe were the only two commissioners in favour of the condition.
Olver said she was initially concerned about putting a restriction over and above the bylaw, but said she supports it because the two parties had reached a common agreement during the meeting.
“I’m proposing an unusual requirement, but in my mind this is in no way precedent setting because we saw this resolution happening right in front of us,” she said.
While happy to see a solution between the applicant and Garrow, Coun. Corrie DiManno couldn’t support putting the condition on the permit and wanted that to be a private discussion between the two parties.
“We’ve got a Community Standards Bylaw, which is universal and has had community consultation on it,” she said.
“If we’re going to discuss changing the hours of construction times, I want to be having that discussion at the council level rather than through MPC.”
Karlos said he would honour what he said at MPC.
“There will be no loud construction after 5 p.m.,” he said.
In 2016, the current use of the building was changed from professional, financial, health and office services to eating and drinking establishment – a permitted use in the commercial downtown (CD) land use district.
