Motels along Columbia Street West could eventually be redeveloped into condo buildings.

Kamloops city planner Stephen Bentley says proposed zoning changes would allow condos with ground-floor commercial space, or condos with only residential units.

“So the idea there is just to improve residential livability. Either it’s a cool mixed-use place, with coffee shops and that kind of thing. Or, it’s somewhere I would want to live, and there’s greenspace and that kind of thing. So what we have in the bylaw is either an option for 40 per cent ground floor commercial, or, as an alternative, 30 per cent landscaping, just like any other multi-family development,” Bentley says.

The motels in that corridor, between Pemberton Terrace and McGill Road, are still zoned as “Highway Commercial,” from when Columbia Street was the Trans-Canada Highway more than 30 years ago.

The proposed zoning changes will come to a city council meeting at a later date.

The topic also came up during a Committee of the Whole meeting last summer, where mayor Ken Christian said rezoning those properties was a no-brainer.

“This would, in my opinion, afford an opportunity to revitalize that area. And add, in particular, that walkability that you need adjacent to (Thompson Rivers University,” Christian said last July.

“What we’re seeing are a lot of motels – that are essentially a remnant of a kinder and gentler time when people used to use that as the highway into Kamloops – that are kind of stagnant, because of the zoning that’s been in place.”