Kelowna city council has rejected a bid by a developer to build a hotel on a former gravel pit across the highway from the city’s airport.
Northland Properties wanted to build a six-storey Sandman Signature hotel on what is now known as Airport Business Park.
But council rejected the bid after city planning staff said it wanted to keep that part of the business park industrial.
City planner Ryan Smith told council Monday, putting the hotel in area of the business park north of Airport Way would be more of a commercial use, and staff were against rezoning the land on a site by site basis.
If a change was to be made to allow commercial development on that part of the business park, a comprehensive change should be made to the entire plan for the land.
There is already a hotel—the Sheraton Four Points—on part of the property south of Airport Way. It is there that the city wants to see commercial development at the business park.
Northland representative Scott Thompson said a second hotel is needed in the area to serve both the airport and the nearby UBCO campus.
But his argument fell on deaf ears as council voted to stick with the original plan for the site and not rezone the site to allow the new hotel.
Mayor Colin Basran said if the land owner wants to come back to the city and talk about an overall change for the property, he should do that. But he was in favour of sticking with the original plan for the property.
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