Parking up for discussion at regular Municipal Planning Committee meeting

 

The Town of Whitecourt Municipal Planning Commission met on Thursday, December 14 for its monthly regular meeting to discuss applications for Discretionary Use including one by Fit Body Boot Camp which is located at 4819 – 50 Avenue in the old Warehouse One building. Development Officer Sam Love introduced the application to the Board and explained that for its size, the business should require 31 parking stalls. The business was instead asking that the requirement be lowered from 31 to 10.

Sam noted that the hours of operation would bring visitors to the downtown which is a benefit for businesses within the area. “This gym is basically classes only so it’s not the type of thing where you can drop in and do your own workout at your own time. Classes are going to be 30 minutes each and hold up to 20 participants.” The hours of operation and the class set up were certainly factors in the approval of the application as it restricted the traffic to the area as opposed to a drop-in format which could see constant traffic.

With three businesses sharing the building space, two furniture stores and the gym, the challenge is clearly parking requirements. “According to the Land Use Bylaw, the retail calculation is one stall per 50 square metres so they need about 11 stalls there, then the gym is calculated at either one stall per 10 square metres or one seat per participant. So, basically, 31 stalls are needed to accommodate both uses on the property,” explained Sam. The application was to reduce the number of stalls to 10.

A recent parking study was completed of the downtown core, and it revealed that parking is not at a premium but that, on the plus side, most businesses are within walking distance of available parking. The location of Fit Body Boot Camp is also not in a high demand parking area. “Normally we don’t look at on-street parking when looking at a business but, in this case, there’s a vacant lot next door so there is on-street parking available.” Sam also added that the shared parking lot with Furniture Den would be used a bit as well.

Twenty-five per cent of the hours of the gym are outside of business hours which also helps in keeping traffic or parking issues as low as possible. Councillor Derek Schlosser mentioned that he has no issues in terms of the parking. “I think there is ample parking given the situation. I do like the recommendations that Sam put in there that this only applies to this business at this time.”

Should a new business be built in the empty lot beside the gym, the business would need to re-evaluate the parking arrangements and re-apply to the commission as no street parking would be available at that time. The application was approved without issue.