I’d skirt the guidelines, frustrated councillor tells restauranteurs

Patio decision epitomizes jurisdictional issues between town and federal government

Councillor Scott Wilson expressed the collective frustration of Jasperites at the May 17 municipal council meeting when he told business delegates in attendance to do their best to expose a loophole that would allow them to operate their patios with tents. Just call them four-legged umbrellas, he offered, only half joking.

“If I was in your position I would be trying to find avenues to skirt the suggestion that you’re using tents.” he said.

The second-term councillor was almost as incredulous as the handful of business owners who attended the meeting (nine, in total) after he read a May 10 letter denying the municipality’s request to to allow local restauranteurs to erect tents or free-standing canopies over their outdoor dining areas. 

“I don’t have an answer,” Wilson said.

Tents are not in compliance with Parks Canada’s architectural motif guidelines, according to Moira McKinnon, JNP’s Realty and Municipal Services Manager, who signed the letter denying the requested amendment to the municipality’s discretionary use permit (letter on page 55).

“The Motif is built upon Jasper’s history and its place in this significant mountain setting. The impact of tents and canopies on our downtown core, the area visitors most associate Jasper’s character with, during our peak visitation period, has a clear impact on the character of this community,” the letter reads.

What wasn’t clear was how Parks Canada interpreted the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce’s position on the issue. McKinnon’s letter stated Parks Canada’s decision was based, in-part, on a chamber of commerce member presentation that suggested tents were not in keeping with Jasper National Park’s Architecture Motif Guidelines. But Chamber President Justin Melnyk, who was at the meeting, was quick to point out that the “majority” of chamber members agreed with the need and the discretionary use of patio tents in 2022. 

“There were a few [businesses] that did not like the tents but the majority were in favour of temporary coverings to make businesses viable for 2022,” Melnyk said.

Councillor Wendy Hall questioned other feedback that McKinnon cited. In the letter, McKinnon quotes an October, 2020 Banff resident survey, as well as 2021 Banff pedestrian zone guidelines, both of which contain ample negative feedback on “circus-like” tents in Banff’s recently-created pedestrian zone on Banff Avenue. However, the tents those complaints were directed at were the massive, walled, event-style tents erected immediately post-pandemic, according to Banff’s director of communications, Jason Darrah.

“There were very large, a clear deviation from the design style,” Darrah told The Jasper Local. “These were not small 10-by-10s.”

Soto Korogonas, who attended the meeting, owns the Downstream Lounge. The restaurant’s patio, with its tents, was the only thing that kept his business solvent after 18 months of closing its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. The tents—necessary to protect his guests from sun and rain and cold—are essential to making the public space useable, he says.

“The functionality should override any aesthetic concern,” he said. “I agree it’s not the most beautiful aesthetic, but is it a safety issue? Or a detriment to other businesses? No.”

Korogonas’ business neighbour, Mountain Air’s Karen Jacobs, agrees. She has gone on the record to say the patios surrounding her retail business improved her bottomline. She told council in March that the patio concept “created a hub of excitement in our area” and that she hoped it would be back for 2022 and beyond.

“Korogonas did an excellent job at making the patio pleasing to look at as well as comfortable for public social distancing rules,” Jacobs wrote on March 24, 2022.

Parks Canada has consulted different feedback. Discussion at a special Planning and Development Advisory Committee (PDAC) meeting on January, 21, 2021, suggested the tents might put Jasper’s motif “in jeopardy,” McKinnon wrote.

“Permits issued in 2021 that included tents clearly stated that these structures would not be permitted after the 2021 season,” McKinnon reminded the Municipality of Jasper’s Director of Protective and Legislative Services, Christine Nadon. 

Nadon, who applied for the MOJ’s discretionary-use amendment on May 3, was directed by Jasper mayor and council to investigate the process for appealing Parks Canada’s recent decision. Meanwhile, operators such as Korogonas are left waiting—for direction on what patio furniture he might be able to use, certainly, but more importantly, for any sort of progress on the issue which overshadows the entire discussion on tents and motif and the character of the community: the fact that Jasper’s land use and planning authority continues to sit with the federal government, not the locally-elected municipal mayor and council. 

“I understand it’s a legal entanglement we can’t just snap our fingers and get out of,” Korogonas said. “But there’s also a lack of competency and resolution for issues that are undermining our ability to live and work in this town.”

In addressing presentations by members of the public at the May 17 meeting, Mayor Richard Ireland explained that council was not at the table with Parks Canada when they made the decision on the request for the tents amendment; neither were they privy to the discussion on the original discretionary-use permit, for that matter.

“Council is not, and will not likely ever be, in a position to tell you the thought processes that determine the decisions that have been communicated to us,” Ireland said. “We are where we are, and that’s primarily a function of the process in which we operate, which is, I wouldn’t say shared jurisdiction. I’d say split jurisdiction.”

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com