Canmore holds public hearing regarding future plans for downtown

Canmore is working on an overhaul of its downtown, and that has some people concerned about changing the character of the mountain town.

More than 125 people showed up to a public hearing in Canmore regarding the future of the community’s downtown, with many voicing frustration over parking, additional housing and a year-round pedestrian zone.

The town has created a redevelopment plan for downtown, which will help guide the next 25 years.

“The various issues that we have in the downtown area are traffic flow experience (and) that you feel downtown vitality. We want to make sure that we protect commercial, while also providing opportunities for enhanced arts and culture, enhanced resident and visitor experience,” said Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert.

“Making sure that we look after things such as parking and movement of people.”

The town is looking at creating a pedestrian zone year-round, which would happen sometime in the 2030s, coinciding with when Main Street’s infrastructure would need to be replaced.

Jade Ansley operates Project A in the community downtown and sees a few issues with a year-round pedestrian zone.

“We still struggle in the winter. I don’t think that removing the traffic and parking from Main Street during the winter months is going to be feasible for our locals. We have an aging demographic here and a lot of older tourists like to come visit, a lot of older locals like to come downtown,” said Ansley.

She did like the idea of more beautification for Main Street, which is part of the town’s vision.

Another proposed feature would allow for high-density building.

Three blocks clustered downtown could see buildings as tall as four storeys.

Currently, buildings in the area are generally three storeys or less.

It would also allow for mixed-residential buildings on the east side of downtown to be four storeys high.

Currently, those are capped at three-and-a-half storeys.

“If you raise the height of all the buildings to four storeys in the residential areas, you block light and block views; the very reason the people moved into those residential areas is gone,” said longtime Canmore resident Sean Meggs.

Thirty-five people were registered to speak at the public hearing; however, the town has opened the floor for everyone to voice their opinion.

Many of the speakers highlighted concerns about having a year-round pedestrian zone and how higher-density building would impact parking.

The town outlined its intent to create a transportation shift in the community.

“We can only handle so many cars and so we’re creating new opportunities for people to walk, bike or take transit. But we’re, of course, still going to be dealing with a lot of vehicle trips,” said Krausert.

“The plan does remove any parking.”

Another topic brought up by several speakers is how the town went about collecting input from the public.

“You don’t get a result that people can buy into because they don’t feel that they were heard and engaged properly. That was our problem with the process,” said Meggs.

According to the mayor, this was the largest public engagement process it has ever conducted, with more than 4,600 individuals involved.

Council will take into consideration the public’s input before moving into a second reading of the vision, which it pushed to May 27.