Plans to fix a 20-year-old architectural eyesore surrounded by the looming concrete walls of Cascade Plaza in downtown Banff have hit a bit of a stumbling block.
The property owners are appealing one of the conditions of their development permit for a $4 million mixed-use commercial building at the intersection of Wolf and Bear streets.
SDR Management says they have concerns about liability and costs as part of a garbage pick-up agreement with the Town of Banff that requires them to install, maintain and operate a heat tracing system on the public sidewalk.
Officials say one of the easiest solutions would be to cut an access door from the property into Cascade Plaza so SDR can share its waste loading area – but an agreement has not yet been reached.
“We’d like to start as soon as possible, but we’re waiting for all these agreements to be done,” said Banff’s Josephine Tsu, one of the partners of Calgary-based SDR Management.
“We’re hoping to work something out with Cascade Plaza and then we don’t have to worry about this.”
The Development Appeal Board met earlier today (Nov. 15), but it was expected that all parties would agree to a postponement of the appeal until sometime in December.
The Municipal Planning Commission gave SDR permission in October to build a three-storey mixed-use commercial building with retail and dining on the ground floor, a larger restaurant on the second floor and mezzanine on top.
One of the challenges facing the redevelopment is removing waste from the site, which is surrounded by the mall. It has only 51 feet of street frontage and the alleyway was eliminated pre-incorporation.
One of the conditions of approval is a garbage agreement with the Town of Banff that requires the property owners to install, maintain and operate a heat tracing system on the public sidewalk.
A heat tracing system involves putting cables or plumbing into the sidewalk, thus heating up the sidewalk, and making sure snow and ice don’t build up.
Darren Enns, Banff’s senior planner, said 204 Wolf Street is the only commercial property in town that does not have back alley access for garbage pick-up.
“It’s the only property in town where garbage would be picked up from the front of the building, so we’re forging new ground with how we would do this,” he said.
“Our belief is sidewalks are designed for pedestrians – not for garbage collection. We know it’s not the ideal setup, and we’re really optimistic an agreement can be reached between the owners and Cascade Plaza.”
SDR Management is opposed to installing heat tracing in the public sidewalk should an agreement with Cascade Plaza not be reached, arguing that traditional methods of snow clearing should be acceptable.
According to the appeal documents, the management group believes that heat tracing will result in increased liability to SDR should a pedestrian get injured due to ice buildup between heated and frozen portions of sidewalk.
In addition, they are opposed to the installation cost, maintenance requirements, and long-term operational costs of heat tracing.
The parcel of land at 204 Wolf Street is an irregular shaped, five-sided polygon property on the north side of the intersection of Wolf Street and Bear Street, where Timbers Food Company had most recently been located.
The weird shaped site is a result of an unresolved disagreement between the local mall developer and the former owner of that piece of property in the late 1980s.
Parks Canada approved Cascade Plaza shortly before Banff was incorporated as an Alberta municipality, but it wasn’t built until after incorporation.
