Council has agreed to write Hostelling International (HI) a letter of support for the construction of a youth hostel on Sleepy Hollow Road.
HI asked council to write a letter to accompany its application to the Alberta Lotteries Community Facility Enhancement Fund.
Council voted in favour of writing the letter at its Feb. 16 meeting.
“This has been in consideration for probably over a decade, and we built sewer lines under the railway tracks that aren’t hooked up yet in anticipation of this project, so I would definitely support it,” said Coun. Brian Nesbitt.
If its application is successful, HI plans to use the provincial lottery funds to help offset the cost of the design and construction of the proposed youth hostel, which is slated for four acres of land on Sleepy Hollow Road, next to Home Hardware.
Parks Canada zoned the space specifically for hostel use before the Municipality of Jasper was incorporated in 2001, and HI plans to use it to construct five buildings.
This includes a single storey accommodation building with space for a maximum of 154 people, a single storey lodge that provides guest services and back of house operations, a two-storey staff accommodation building for 12 employees and a two-storey apartment building for the manager and assistant manager and a maintenance building.
The project is still at the conceptual stage.
So far, Parks Canada has received concept drawings and now it’s waiting on detailed drawings in order for the development review process to begin.
The thrust of the project is to build a hostel that is more accessible and centrally located to accommodate backpackers, as well as new staff coming to town.
HI has five wilderness hostels within Jasper National Park. Currently the closest is Whistlers, which is located seven kilometres from town, halfway up the SkyTram road.
A wildlife confluence study, completed more than a decade ago, identified the current Whistlers hostel as being located in an important wildlife movement corridor and indicated its 80 beds would be more suitable in town.
Once the new hostel is constructed on Sleepy Hollow Road, the Whistlers hostel will be decommissioned, the buildings demolished and the land remediated to allow wildlife to repatriate the land.
Nicole Veerman [email protected]
