Castlegar City Council has denied a request from the owners of the SureStay Hotel to turn the hotel’s former banquet room into a storage facility.

The proposal called for a 300-square-metre self-storage facility encompassing 48 individual storage units of up to 50 square feet each. The requested site-specific zoning changes would have allowed for up to 7.5 per cent of the building’s floor area to be utilized for commercial storage.

The city’s Advisory Planning Commission, made up of local residents, unanimously endorsed the proposed amendments.

But combing a storage facility with a hotel was not something the majority of council wanted to see.

The proposal also required an amendment to the city’s official community plan, and that turned out to be the major cause of dissent.

The city is currently in the middle of updating its official community plan. Public consultation was conducted this spring, and a draft plan is expected by fall.

Mayor Maria McFaddin told Castlegar News, “The OCP and zoning bylaw will say what kind of businesses and what kind of zoning you want where, so council found it was important to follow through with that process first. There wasn’t any compelling information that indicated we should fast-track and change this without first finishing the OCP process.”

“To change an OCP and zoning right now, when we have had negative feedback doesn’t seem like good governance.”

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