Growing Banff faces housing shortage
Population could top 11,000 in the next 10 years, study says
While the town is best known for its crush of tourists, Banff officials have their eyes on a crush of a different sort — a housing shortage as its population nears a cap set by Parks Canada.
The town’s overall residential population could grow to more than 11,000 in the next 10 years unless ways are found to manage growth, a new housing study says.
A Parks Canada management plan for Banff stipulates the town’s permanent population must stay below 8,000.
Officials say the study’s numbers suggest Banff will have a critical housing shortage by 2022 or even earlier as its population continues to grow.
“I found the projections interesting and it’s hard to know whether those kinds of numbers will actually come to fruition,” Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen said. “That being said, even if we don’t grow in population, we still have a housing issue. Regardless of the projections, we need to work on this for current populations.”
The Parks Canada cap was linked to future commercial development during contentious debates leading up to Banff’s 1998 community plan. Calgary-based Housing Strategies Inc. prepared a $54,000 study for the Banff Housing Corp. to identify Banff’s housing needs over the next 10 years, conduct an affordability analysis and identify gaps in housing.
In 1998, the assumption was a commercial square footage cap would keep the residential population from rising because the number of jobs would not increase, but it did not take into account the growth of businesses in existing commercial space.
The Housing Strategies study concludes Banff will likely reach the Parks Canada cap of 8,000 permanent residents between 2015 and 2016, prior to full commercial buildout, which is expected in 2020 and 2021. It suggests that when the town hits the cap, Banff’s total population will be 10,835 — 8,000 permanent and 2,835 temporary residents.
But the study also says that unless growth-management strategies can be developed, the town’s total population could potentially grow to 11,060 residents by 2022 — 9,330 permanent and 1,730 temporary residents.
Dave McDonough, superintendent of Banff National Park, said in terms of population, the goal is to have a healthy and vibrant community focused as a visitor centre in Banff National Park.
McDonough said the Banff townsite has a defined boundary, a commercial development cap and a need-to-reside clause that requires residents to prove they need to live in the community.
The population target was based on those factors.