There are many factors that come into play when finding the right location for your business to operate out of.
This post is about ZONING and PARKING which are often the two largest hurdles many businesses face in their search for the perfect space to lease.
All landlords, especially potential tenants, need to confirm with the City of Lethbridge and reference the Land use bylaws (Requirements for regular Parking Spaces) and make sure they have enough parking to accommodate the city rules and regulations for the building/area they are looking at and enough parking for all the tenants.
There is quite an extensive list of rules and regulations, please note the rules will differ from industry to industry and even differ from the various parts of the city. Do yourself a favor, before you ever sign a lease with anyone, do some due diligence and make sure your type of business has permitted use in the area and/or building you are considering. The landlord of the building should also be well aware of these restrictions.
For example, if you are considering any of the following: (Disclaimer- Please note this is ONLY a reference, rules may have changed from the time of this post so you personally need to confirm with the city before proceeding)
- Normal office space (Accountant, Insurance, lawyer, call centre) seems to be one of the more relaxed categories and requires only 1 parking stall for every 45 m2 of leased floor space.
- Medical and Health Office outpatient space (dentist, doctor clinic, psychologists/counseling services, chiropractic. physio…) requires 1 parking stall for every 15 m2 of leased floor space. Some of these practices might be 20 m2
- Personal services require 1 parking stall for every 20 m2 of leased floor space.
- Retail-type stores require 1 parking stall for every 35 m2 of leased floor space.
There are too many to mention but the above seem to be some of the more common we encounter on a regular basis.
The last thing you want to do is start out on the wrong foot with the neighboring businesses finding out your business is impacting their often privately owned property or the day-to-day operations of the other existing tenants.
You will want to avoid going down the so-called rabbit hole of having to apply for “change of use” especially if you are going to try and put something into the space that requires more parking than what is already allocated. Once you request a change of use you then will need to comply with all the current rules/building codes, this can be a costly endeavor.
If requesting a “change of use” a person will have to apply for a waiver/permit to the City Development department. Depending on the circumstances if that waiver/ permit is denied they might even need to appeal to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board. All this takes time, they will canvas any neighboring businesses and property owners that could potentially be impacted.
Once a Development and zoning permit is in place unless there is a request for a “change of use” that permit cannot be reversed.
You will often see some landlords stick to allowing only certain types of businesses that already have the various permits in place for various spaces once they know they have permitted use as it does simplify things for properties that could encounter zoning and parking hurdles.
In our Magrath Centre, we are very aware of the parking requirements and the zoning of each of our spaces, have already turned away potential tenant inquiries as their businesses will not work within the parameters set by the city for our property.
As of February 24, 2023 we have a few vacancies, all the vacant spaces are currently zoned as either Medical Health office or Personal services. In the eyes of the City, there is adequate parking for most types of businesses and in their parking calculations, they have allocated a certain amount of parking stalls on our property.
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