BANFF – An aerial tram or gondola to Upper Goat's Eye, relocation of summer use and an expanded plan to deal with parking problems form part of Sunshine Village's future vision for development.
The ski resort last week launched its own website putting forward its development proposals compared to Parks Canada’s draft site guidelines for future development and use at the national park ski area, which are currently out for public review until Aug. 19.
Sunshine officials say parking, commercial space, a secondary access lift, terrain and lift capacity, and operational space need to be balanced with a proposed capacity of 8,500 skiers a day.
“The options that we’re presenting are favourable not only from a business point, but from an environmental point of view and visitor point of view,” said Dave Riley, Sunshine’s chief operating officer.
“The terrain actually could handle more than (8,500), but we settled on that over years and years of conversations, but our condition was that we get the things necessary so that we have balance.”
To set the course for future development and use at national park ski hills, site guidelines are developed in discussion with ski area operators, with Parks Canada taking the lead. Following that, long-range plans are developed with ski areas taking the lead.
Sheila Luey, acting superintendent of Banff National Park, said ecological integrity is the first priority in making decisions, including maintaining the development footprint in the park, noting visitor experience and public safety are also important.
“We want to hear what Canadians say about their vision for additional development and future operations at Sunshine, and that will inform us at the end of the day on how we respond to things like the tram proposal or additional parking,” she said.
“It’s about more than just what Sunshine wants and Parks Canada wants. At the end of the day we really want Canadians to weigh in, and with their help, I think we can get it right.”
A lack of parking, particularly on the peak days and busy holidays, has been one of the more controversial issues between Sunshine and Parks Canada over the years, and has involved several court cases.
When the existing 1,700-stall surface lot is full, skiers park their vehicles along the lower section of the access road and in two parking lots at the bottom of the access road. Parking is banned on the upper section of the road because of avalanche paths.
With a proposed daily capacity of 8,500 skiers at build-out, Sunshine’s third party consultants identified an additional 1,030 parking stalls were needed somewhere near the base area.
The resort wants to build a 280-stall parkade at the existing parking lot at base of the resort and another 730-stall satellite surface lot on undisturbed land along the access road about six kilometres from the resort to deal with a lack of parking.
On the other hand, Parks Canada’s draft site guidelines offer mass transit, terrace parking and/or a multi-level parking structure at the existing surface lot at the base of the mountain as options to deal with parking challenges.
Engineers have informed Sunshine that a 1,030-stall parkade would cost more than $30 million, a capital investment the resort says it can’t afford and could lead to increases in parking fees and lift ticket prices.
“All you would see when you came in is giant concrete box,” said Riley.
“It would be like going into the Calgary Airport and I don’t think that’s what people expect to see in a national park.”
Riley said Sunshine’s plan for a smaller 280-stall parkade at the base and the remaining 750 at would allow wildlife to move through the existing parking area more effectively, particularly at night.
“We have tracking data on the animals, and we can see that they use the parking lot, particularly at night, but they won’t go through a structure,” said Riley.
Parks Canada’s draft site guidelines state expansion of the parking area, either upslope into Healy Creek wildlife corridor or further down valley, is constrained by steep, narrow avalanche-prone valleys, unstable slopes, stream habitats, and wildlife movement routes.
Officials with Parks say Sunshine’s first long range plan must ensure issues related to parking, the ski out and water supply will be addressed prior to or as part of any proposal to increase ski area design capacity beyond 6,500 skiers.
Luey said most of Sunshine’s parking options lie outside the ski area boundary, adding it’s up to Sunshine to choose how many stalls they need as part of a parkade or terrace at the existing parking lot.
“We are looking at all the options along with any other comments we receive,” she said. “We haven’t made any decisions on this yet.”
Another sticking point between the ski resort and Parks Canada is a secondary access lift.
Parks Canada would be okay with a lift paralleling the existing gondola from the base to the upper village, whereas Sunshine prefers to build an aerial tram or gondola from the base to the Sunshine Coast area on Upper Goat’s Eye.
Under Sunshine’s proposal, an aerial tram to Upper Goat’s Eye could also be used for summer use. In exchange for secondary access lift, the ski resort offered to give up summer use at Sunshine Meadows by closing the existing gondola, Standish chair and hotel in summer.
The ski resort says its option is much better for the environment, noting it would require the removal of 200 trees versus about 5,700 and only requires one tower compared to 32, whereas Parks Canada says there’s much more to environmental issues than just tree removal.
Riley said the tower location would be outside their existing lease, but noted Parks has issued licences of occupation in other situations. Sunshine is willing to have wildlife corridor land removed from is leasehold to help offset the tower installation.
“The tracking data shows the wildlife don’t really use the area we’re proposing because it’s very cliffy and very steep,” said Riley.
Luey said Sunshine presented Parks Canada with this particular proposal for a tram, restaurant and interpretive trail on Goat’s Eye at a meeting last month, adding there had been variations of this in past discussions.
“We’ve committed to carefully consider everything, but it will take careful study and review because these are complex matters,” she said.
“This is additional development and we want to hear what Canadians say about their vision for additional development and future operations of Sunshine.”
As part of future development plans, Sunshine is also calling for a series of new lifts, including Hayes Hill, Lookout, Bye Bye Bowl, Meadow Park, Wildside and Goat’s Eye II.
Parks Canada’s draft site guidelines remove some areas from the existing leasehold boundary, which would mean the elimination of planned lifts at Bye Bye Bowl, Meadow Park and Wildside (Southside Chutes).
Riley said these lifts and terrain have been planned for decades.
“They’re changing the zoning designation so we’ll never been able to develop those,” he said.
“With Marmot and Lake Louise, they were given property outside of their lease in exchange for areas that were taken out of their lease. In our case, they’re taking lands out of our lease but not giving us anything in return.”
Luey said the draft site guidelines don’t envision these three lifts at this point, noting Parks will wait to see what Canadians have to say during the public comment period.
“Quite honestly, to my knowledge this may have been Sunshine’s plan, but from my perspective and to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t seen anything that would suggest Parks Canada had ever approved or agreed to lifts in Bye Bye Bowl, Meadow Park and Wildside.”
There’s also differences on the amount of additional commercial indoor space, such as for restaurants, retail shops and rental shops.
Parks Canada’s guidelines indicate a range of between 2,000 and 3,650 square metres of additional square footage, but Sunshine says 5,000-square-metres is needed based on ski area planning standards for 8,500 people.
Riley said Sunshine wants their options considered.
“We know we’re not going to be a Whistler and we know we’re in a national park and we’re fine with operating in that context, but we’re out of balance and that creates stress for the visitors and stress for the operator,” he said.
“We’re trying to correct those imbalances, to make sure when the resort is at full build-out that it works really well.”
The deadline for public input on the draft site guidelines is August 19.
