A Yellowknife Racquet Club request to rezone the land on which it sits has been approved by city council after a Wednesday public hearing.
The gym had asked City Hall to rezone its parcels of land from parks and recreation to Old Town mixed use. The business said the rezoning would allow it to look at doing more with the land in future, though it did not set out specific proposals.
“Right now, the only thing we’re allowed to build, because it’s under parks, is a gym,” Devin Madsen, one of the club’s owners, told Cabin Radio late last year.
He described rezoning the land is a preliminary step that would give the club “an opportunity to build something else” on a vacant lot next to the existing facility.
One Racquet Club member, Cory Dohlen, spoke at Wednesday’s hearing in favour of the gym as a “community space” over which many people felt a form of collective ownership.
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“Based off of how they run it, I think we can make some safe assumptions of how they’re going to develop the space beside it,” he said of the owners and their plans. “I believe that would be absolutely responsible infrastructure.”
A second resident, describing themselves as a neighbour of the Racquet Club, told the hearing they had a safety concern related to potential traffic increases. They wondered what was planned to deal with an influx of traffic not just from any possible gym expansion, but also from the opening of the city’s new mosque at the end of the same street.
Councillor Ryan Fequet echoed that message. “Right now, I don’t think parking is acceptable or safe” in the area, he said.
He asked city staff how traffic on the street would be addressed.
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In response, city planning director Charlsey White said that’s something the city would assess once the gym owners actually applied for a development permit (a later, separate step after rezoning).
“All of that is considered at the development permit stage. When that comes in, we’ll post a notice so the neighbourhood will see a nice big sign on the property,” White said.
“We’re also going to mail out – to anybody who lives in the area – a notice outlining what is being proposed and where they can find more information.”
Fequet responded by saying traffic in the area “is a very serious issue, and I don’t think we should wait till the development permit comes in.”
In subsequent votes immediately after the hearing closed, council unanimously approved the rezoning.
Two other public hearings were held in council chambers on Wednesday.
They related to an application from outdoor adventure firm Jackpine Paddle to rezone some land so a large storage shed could be built. Two hearings were needed as two bylaws were being amended: the community plan and the zoning bylaw.
Those hearings came and went without opposition being voiced and the bylaws were subsequently passed by council.
