Banff isn’t just an ordinary town: it has to operate within the confines of the Canada National Parks Act — and this is where things get sticky.
What happens when the law doesn’t keep up with the times? Just ask the Town of Banff.
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The local council recently got an unexpected tap on the shoulder from Banff National Park Superintendent Salman Rasheed, who submitted a letter to oppose the practice of allowing businesses to extend their commercial footprint onto the street and sidewalks along two blocks of Banff Avenue.
That letter came at the last moment of a weeks-long discussion about resuming the seasonal transformation of a section of its main street into a mainly pedestrian-only zone.
Rasheed’s missive caused local representatives to put off making a decision until this week.
Mayor Corrie DiManno wondered about the implications of Parks Canada’s position.
“What are the specific laws and sections of legislation that he mentions in the letter? Are they suggesting a ban on restaurant patios in all areas of town, such as Bear Street, Wolf Street, Caribou Street, and elsewhere in Banff National Park at ski hills, Johnston Canyon, Lake Louise?” she told council.
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The practice of allowing retailers, restaurants and drinking establishments to operate on sidewalks and streets began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of providing physical distancing between clients.
Although the pandemic is officially behind us, many places all over the continent have continued activating streets for the benefit of people’s enjoyment — and Banff had wanted to do the same.
The trouble is, Banff isn’t just an ordinary town on a legislative level: it has to operate within the confines of the Canada National Parks Act — and this is where things get sticky.
This federal law limits the floor area of commercial space in the town to 361,390 square metres, which is equivalent to just shy of 3.9 million square feet.
And as the Banff National Park of Canada Management Plan of 2022 put it: “This amount of commercial space has now been fully allocated.”
There are no provisions for using sidewalks and streets for commerce so by the letter of the law, outdoor patios and other commercial activities are likely not allowed.
By the way, that law was passed in 2000, based on data from 1998. No one from that time could have anticipated the response to the pandemic or changing public attitudes toward streets.
Having visited Banff many times since the pandemic-inspired changes, I must say the extra patios don’t negatively affect the character of the town. If anything, the temporary arrangements on Banff Avenue and the permanent changes to nearby Bear Street have added charm to what was already a very charming place.
Not every business had extended itself onto the town’s main drag, and those that did took tasteful approaches with restrained footprints.
Parks Canada further clarified its stance by saying it has no issue with the actual closing of Banff Avenue during the warmer months. Its “main concern is the proposed expansion of commercial restaurants onto public sidewalks and roads and is not suggesting a ban on all commercial use in national parks,” the agency said in a statement supplied to a Postmedia reporter.
If the park superintendent is afraid of over-commercializing the town of Banff, he needn’t worry.
Banff is already very obviously an alpine resort town. With the seasonal addition of a limited number of modest patios along a short stretch of Banff Avenue, there’s little danger of it turning into a Rocky Mountain counterpart to Las Vegas’s Fremont Street or the Strip.
The ideal solution would be to modernize the nearly quarter-century-old federal law that governs the town of Banff’s commercial activities to clearly define and limit commercial access to streets for patios and the like. Perhaps a kindly federal MP can pick up the torch on this file.
In the meantime, I hope all parties involved can come to an interim arrangement for outdoor patios, not too different from what was arranged for pandemic times.
Banff has already demonstrated its ability to conduct commercial activities on small portions of its streets and sidewalks without turning them into outdoor shopping malls.
Besides, it would be foolish for the town to do anything to compromise the integrity of the place.
rleong@postmedia.com
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