BANFF – The impacts of overcrowding and traffic congestion in Canada’s flagship mountain resort town are taking a toll on Banff residents’ quality of life and degrading the experience of the more than four million annual visitors, forcing the Town of Banff to consider human use management.
Coun. Grant Canning, who initiated a human use management discussion at the council table last year, hasn’t always been keen to tackle this contentious issue, but he’s come around to the idea following extensive research and study.
“We have to find this harmony between visitor experience, quality of life for our residents and, of course, the ecological integrity piece,” said Canning.
“I honestly believe these three things can be accomplished all at the same time.”
A PhD candidate at the University of Manitoba, Canning’s research topic is looking at visitor use management strategies that have been implemented within national parks and gateway communities to determine how those strategies have affected and influenced visitor behaviour.
He also attended a visitor use management symposium hosted in Vancouver, Washington in the United States from June 2-5. The aim was to connect with visitor use management practitioners who are developing innovative solutions to plan for and manage outdoor recreation in natural settings.
As part of the conference, Canning took part in a field study trip to the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, which highlighted the integrated approach partners are using to address increasing visitor use, including timed entry, transportation solutions and long-term partnerships.
He learned about a standardized, multi-agency visitor use management framework that was developed about 10 years ago among the different agencies responsible for managing public lands in the United States, which he refers to as “the gold standard for visitor use management.”
“A lot of those areas in the U.S. were having significant challenges around overtourism, visitor experience, overcrowding, etc., and what they realized was all the different agencies were dealing with it slightly different,” he said.
“They wanted a science-based, consistent approach that was legally defensible.”
Canning believes a human use management framework similar to the one developed in the U.S. could be carried over to Banff, but refined for the national park townsite’s unique circumstances.
“It really dawned on me, why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we looking at this framework that already exists, that has been used to great effect?” he said.
“It was a bit of a no-brainer to me. Why would we recreate the wheel when the wheel already exists?”
There are strong opinions in Banff on both sides of the human use management debate – those residents who want visitor limits to deal with congestion and improve their quality of life and those who don’t amid fears it will hurt the economy.
“The intent of this framework is to get all of those opinions together that we can hopefully raise up to the level that we can identify desired outcomes, desired conditions of what we want Banff to be,” Canning said.
“Once you have that, then you can get into the tactical portion of it.”
The rest of council seems to be on board, supporting a recommendation in the Banff Community Plan to work with partners to develop a comprehensive human use management framework for the Town of Banff.
The plan – a high level social, economic and environmental blueprint to guide the municipality over the next 10 to 15 years – also calls for investigating the feasibility of a destination stewardship council focused on regional visitor use management within the Bow Valley.
As the municipality embarks down this road, Mayor Corrie DiManno said the approach and discussion on human use management must be collaborative in order to shape the best possible outcome.
“I think people may get their backs up and think that this is a Trojan horse for restrictions or limits, but it’s just trying to ensure that we have a very high quality experience for our visitors as well as a really good life for our residents,” she said at a council meeting on Monday (July 28).
A new survey shows residents are highly satisfied with their quality of life in Banff, but one-third feel their quality of life has declined in the past three years because of the rising cost-of-living, tourism and overcrowding.
DiManno wanted key takeaways from the resident satisfaction incorporated into the community plan.
“I want to leave it in administration’s hands to wordsmith at this time. I don’t want to get too into micro-management today,” he said.
Following concerns from some residents and the chair of the community plan advisory committee that the heart and soul of the plan had been taken out following pushback from the businesses sector, Coun. Chip Olver was successful in getting several amendments through.
Top among them is reference to the fact that as visitation to the Town of Banff continues to grow, and while this growth has provided a strong economic base for the community, residents are feeling the strain. The steady visitor growth is not only creating impacts that affect quality of life for residents, but also visitor experience and the natural environment.
In addition, the plan again indicates that as visitation increases and development in Banff is capped, this interconnectedness means that a collaborative and regional approach is required to effectively manage human use within the Banff townsite and the greater Bow Valley.
“I think this is key in that it goes to the balancing that we’ve been talking about,” Olver said.
While seemingly a technicality, Canning was successful in changing wording from visitor use to human use management, which fundamentally recognizes Banff has 10,000 residents, not just the four million-plus visitors.
“Council certainly gets a lot of comments from residents, that whenever you’re talking about visitors, residents get left out of that equation. I think historically there has been some criticism of council that we focus too much on visitors and not enough on residents,” he said.
“By changing the term from visitor use to human use the intention is to make it more encompassing, so within that framework it’s not just dealing with people who are visiting the park but we have to consider people who are living here as well.”
Coun. Hugh Pettigrew was unsuccessful in his bid to ensure human use management is clearly tied to capacity-based planning and long-term sustainability.
“Capacity-based planning would certainly help us get into that framework where we are measuring,” he said.
“Without measurement we’re not able to manage, we are not able to protect what we do not monitor, we cannot plan effectively without knowing where our thresholds are."
Canning believed this was too soon to consider, though it could be a result eventually.
“When you start talking about capacity-based planning, that is an outcome,” he said.
“When you’re talking about tactics without having that extensive public input consultation process first, it’s really putting the cart before the horse.”
Coun. Ted Christensen failed to get definitions of capacity, overtourism, that would confirm boundaries and limits while also considering the commercial cap, housing density and daily visitor limits, inserted into the community plan.
“This is what most of my conversations are about and I think we need a definition for overtourism,” he said.
Canning said trying to define capacity and overtourism in the community is a “beast.”
“Asking administration to define that without any kind of public consultation, without any public hearings, without any process, to just come back with a report to define what capacity is and overtourism is, is an impossible task,” he said.
“What this needs is an extensive, comprehensive public input process to hear from all aspects of our community, not just those who are concerned about overtourism and want to put visitor caps, etc. That is one side of the community. This whole topic has not been discussed nearly to the extent it needs to be by the other part of the community that has concerns that we might be going too far.”
Randall McKay, the Town of Banff’s point man on community plan, said the plan is meant to be an aspirational document that reflects the long-term vision for the future, but cautioned council it is not meant to be too prescriptive.
“It provides a framework for decision-making rather than dictating every specific action,” said McKay, the manager of special projects and strategic initiatives for the Town.
“It’s not a tourism master plan, it’s not a transportation plan, nor is it an economic development plan for that matter. It’s crucial to remain focused on the high level policy and vision of the community rather than getting bogged down in specific short-term tactics.”
