Skip to content

New hotel proposed for Williams Lake

A four-storey 50- unit hotel proposed for Broadway Avenue South will need to find more parking spaces.
mly Aviator Hotel
The proponents for a hotel on Broadway Avenue South

A four-storey 50- unit hotel proposed for Broadway Avenue South will need to find more parking spaces if it wants further consideration by the city.

Williams Lake Ventures Incorporation requested a development variance for its Aviator Hotel that would include a parking ratio of .86 spaces, instead 1.25 parking spaces per sleeping unit — the normal requirement.

City council denied the request Tuesday and decided to send the application back for parking adjustments.

“The applicant will have to go back to figure out what they are going to do about parking, whether that means rejigging what it looks like on site or negotiating with adjacent property owners, there are a number of options they can look at,” said Geoff Goodall, general manger of planning and operations.

During public comment on the application, nearby hotel owners and employees raised concerns about the development, especially parking.

Best Western employee Steve Forseth said the application for the hotel first came to the city in 2008, before the Best Western development, and parking would not have been a challenge at that time.

“Since then the subdivision above it has also been more fully developed,” Forseth said.

“Having worked at the Best Western for the last year, I am concerned that allowing the variance will place tremendous strain on Super 8, Laughing Loon and the Best Western.”

Best Western manager Jassi Sangha said his hotel has the 1.25 parking space ratio for its 64 rooms.

“On a busy day I’ll have crews taking four or five stalls just to park their work trucks so we’re log-jammed for room when we’re full,” he said.

“If they are building a hotel their projection should be the same.”

Council did, however, approve the applicant’s development variance to increase the maximum height of the four-storey hotel from 10 metres to 11.38 metres.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
Read more