Town council isn't letting a lack of parking stand in the way of a new activity starting up in town.
At their Nov. 8 meeting, town council voted in favour of allowing a laser tag arena to move forward with opening its doors, despite a major variance with parking required under the land use bylaw.
“I just think there is an opportunity here, and particularly for the youth. This is a fairly new business that wants to try and get going in our downtown,” said Bonnyville mayor Gene Sobolewski. “If we allow parking as the main stumbling block to allow development, we're going to lose the downtown to other venues where there's abundant parking areas. I don't want to see that happen in our community.”
The application for the development of a laser tag facility at 5003 51 Ave. was initially brought before the Municipal Planning Commission (MPC) at council's Oct. 25 meeting. Submitted by local resident Bev Towe, her hope is that by creating a new recreational activity in town it will not only give youth in the area something to do, but also keep visitors' dollars in Bonnyville instead of heading to Cold Lake.
Based on Towe's application, to run a laser tag arena and party room, the site has an 82.7 per cent variance from the total of 39 parking stalls she would need, according to the land use bylaw. It was due to this fact that the town staff recommended council refuse the development.
However, not wanting to discourage growth in the downtown, the issue was brought back before council last Tuesday. Ultimately, council voted to approve the application, on the grounds that there is a combination of payment in-lieu of missing parking stalls and a lease agreement for a nearby lot where patrons could park.
“What we would do for any future developments is we would note that's how the parking was done. We did that with the Sears building, that one is now broken up into smaller businesses. Back in 1999 they had paid for two parking stalls so they had that on their land file that they had previously paid when that building was constructed,” explained Katherine Currie, director of planning and development for the town.
Town CAO Mark Power expressed to council that the major concern is to ensure patrons aren't parking on private property, including lots that were constructed for other businesses. After sending out notifications of the development permit application, the one opposition sent back was from a neighbouring property owner, concerned that a lack of parking stalls at the laser tag would cause their lot to be utilized.
“What we're concerned with, and we'll make that very clear to the applicant, is that they do not park on private property, or allow patrons to park on private property without permission… It's okay to park on the street, but do not park in private property without permission. Your patrons will get towed.”
Councillors were all in favour of granting the development permit. They decided to move forward on the basis that there are only six deficient stalls, instead of 34, a number MPC deemed acceptable since the seating area required 11 stalls minus the five that are already on-site. The applicant will now have time to figure out how many stalls can be made up through a lease agreement, and how much parking she will need to pay for at a cost of just over $2,000 per stall based on the value of the lot.
“It's something I'd like to see. We don't have a whole lot to entertain the kids, no theatre, no bowling, this is probably a pretty good thing,” said Coun. Ray Prevost. “I want council to remember we're setting somewhat of a precedent here, there are a lot of empty spots for businesses on main street.”
This application did bring council to the further realization that something needs to be done about parking in the town's downtown area. It's an issue they expressed interest in pursuing sooner rather than later.
With the recent formation of a new downtown revitalization committee, Currie suggested that parking might be a project that the members appointed could take a look at.
Now that the laser tag facility has been given the go-ahead, Towe is hoping to have things up and running before Christmas.