MD OF BIGHORN – Any changes coming to the number of stalls needed per visitor accommodation unit in the Municipal District of Bighorn will have to wait a few weeks.
The land use bylaw stipulates that all visitor accommodations must provide one parking spot per unit. As well, a person cannot reside in a visitor accommodation for longer than 75 days per year. Visitor accommodation is currently allowed in areas zoned as highway commercial, commercial mixed-use and commercial in Harvie Heights, Dead Man’s Flats and Scott Lake.
The issue over parking comes about with visitor accommodation units developed with multiple rooms that have multiple vehicles per unit.
Cairnstone Planning was hired to prepare a study to examine parking issues and investigate how other similar municipalities in North America are handling them.
As part of the study, Cairnstone Planning looked at the Sparrowhawk development in Dead Man’s Flats. This development will have 107 visitor units and 150 parking stalls. Under the current land use bylaw, the site would only need 115 parking spots but the amendment would have the site need 157 parking stalls.
The proposal would provide one stall per studio or one-bedroom unit, 1.5 stalls per two-bedroom unit, two stalls per three-bedroom unit, 2.5 stalls per four-bedroom unit and three stalls per five-bedroom unit.
The bylaw to be amended is only the commercial use bylaw, not the visitor accommodation suites in residential district.
At the April 26 Bighorn council meeting, it received the recommendation to approve the first reading of the bylaw to amend parking requirements for commercial visitor accommodations.
One concern over the change was whether it would impact developers and their building size.
“With us increasing the parking, the consequence to the developer is less size for building, or is most of the parking going underground,” Councillor Joss Elford said.
Administration responded this would be specific to the site and what the developer decided.
“I don’t know if there is a residual impact to the municipality if the development has 10 five-bedroom units vs. 10 one-bedroom units,” Reeve Lisa Rosvold said. “Does it make a difference at the end of the day?”
Administration responded that 10 one-bedroom units would require 10 stalls, while two five-bedroom units would require six stalls, so it is cheaper for the developer to build larger units.
The bylaw change would also only apply to the highway district, not to the mixed-use district.
“I was under the impression it would be used for both of them. We have several areas zoned for mixed-use,” Rosvold said. “I was hoping that this would be something relevant for both those land uses. If it's not, then we need to get moving on those recommendations for that land use district.”
According to Rosvold, the intent of the amendment was to consider the highway commercial land use bylaw and parking within the highway commercial area.
“That would have included mixed-use,” Rosvold said. “I suppose we don’t have all the answers to these questions before we proceed with first reading of this bylaw. This is only a fraction of what I was looking for.”
CAO Robert Ellis stated the concern was about visitor accommodation in new developments in places like Dead Man’s Flats and Harvie Heights causing parking issues.
“My impression was that it was coming from residents who were concerned about new visitor accommodation developments, not mixed us,” Ellis said. “We are happy to go back and do a review. If you want us to look at commercial districts, we can do that.”
Council chose to postpone the approval of first reading until after the May finance and development meeting, while administration brought in more information for clarification purposes regarding parking in the highway and mixed-use districts.
