Banff Alberta - Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) has been slapped with a stop order over plans to demolish a 106-year-old heritage building without a permit and for the unauthorized construction of a new building at the Banff train station.
 
The railway giant backed away from knocking down the 1910 Banff Railway Station Icebox building, one of the few remaining original refrigerator buildings in Western Canada, when the Town of Banff ordered they cease all demolition work on 5 Oct 2016.
 
The stop order also demanded CP remove a newly-constructed building, and while it's unlikely to come to that, planners say the company failed to get valid permits, a process used to determine if the building meets Banff's commercial development cap rules.
 
Darren Enns, the Town of Banff's senior planner, said there was no permit in placed to demolish the icebox building, but he said the municipality plans to meet with CP in the coming weeks for further discussions.
 
"Last week we got wind CP had not only built a new building without permitting from the Town, but planned to demolish an old building, one of the earliest industrial buildings in Banff," he said.
 
"CP has committed to back away from the demolition and nothing impending is going to happen with that old building."
 
CP has the right to appeal the stop order to Banff's development appeal board within 14 days of receipt of the letter.
 
Salem Woodrow, a spokesperson for CP, said CP was not able to comment at this time.
 
While CP backed away from demolishing the two-storey icebox building last week, it's unclear what its long-term plans are for the 1910 facility, located about 140 metres northeast of the train station.
 
Enns said that's yet to be determined.
 
"Right now, it's really fresh in terms of getting this thing stopped. It appeared imminent," he said, noting the building looked ready to be knocked down last week, with all electrical disconnected.
 
"We're optimistic we're going to find a collaborative solution with CP on this."
 
Commercially zoned lands within the Town of Banff include the Commercial Railway (CR) land use district, which in turn includes both the newly constructed building and the icebox building.
 
Enns said it is fairly common for CP not to go through municipal permitting processes across the country on the grounds they fall within federal authority, but argued the company needed development and building permits for the new building.
 
"Where it gets tricky in the Town of Banff is we also have federal authority because we have to uphold federal growth management regulations," Enns said.
 
"Whenever we see buildings go up in any commercial growth district, we need to ensure it complies with the commercial growth management regulations."
 
Without a development permit application, Banff planners don't know for sure whether CP's plan for the new building they recently constructed includes commercial use.
 
"The way we figure it out is to get a development permit. Obviously, the land use bylaw exempts a few things, such as covered parking," Enns said.
 
"On the face of it, it looks like a building that vehicles are stored in, and it very likely won't trigger commercial development regulations, but that is why we go through a process for a development permit."
 
Meanwhile, a Town of Banff statement of significance for the icebox building indicates it meets Alberta Culture's significance criteria for heritage value as it clearly represents both cultural and architectural value.
 
The cultural value is attributed to the building's direct association with CP in Banff and with changes brought to the area as a result of increased growth in tourism and the expansion of Canada's Rocky Mountain Park, Banff National Park's predecessor.
 
The building's architectural significance comes from its utilitarian function as an early refrigerator and as an example of simple early western industrial architecture.
 
Banff's planning and development department has not had time yet to brief Banff's Heritage Corporation on the issue.
 
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