Three community enhancement suggestions were deferred after being presented in front of Cochrane town council from administration.
Senior manager of development services Drew Hyndman presented findings for three proposed community enhancements at the March 14 council meeting discussing:
– Changing road standards to accommodate parked cars on each side of the road and two lanes for travelling vehicles
– Increase setbacks between homes by one foot
– Homes closer than the proposed increased setbacks shall have no front driveways or street parking.
After the first discussion, Coun. Jeff Toews said he was extremely disappointed in administration’s findings and he thought there was some miscommunication on what council was looking for.
“This completely misses the mark on what we were looking for and it is incredibly one-sided,” Toews said.
The Cochrane Community Enhancement motions were brought to council two years ago with a list of 10 proposed enhancements, including (but not limited to) community layout and design, densities, traffic and parking, natural area protection, with a focus to enhance the quality of life for residents and the community.
Council has been addressing the proposed enhancement motions in sets of two or three at previous council meetings. The motions were brought forward as a way to acknowledge the continued growth of the town while respecting the need to retain special characteristics.
After the suggested alternatives to changing road standards to accommodate parked cars on each side of the road and two lanes for travelling vehicles, such as permit parking, Toews said he wanted to defer decisions on all three enhancements and have further discussion with administration on what he was looking for.
“I am not a fan of permit parking – you are just going to piss people off,” Toews said. “I can sit here and tear this apart but we aren’t going to get anywhere.”
Coun. Gaynor Levisky agreed that there needed to be further discussion about understanding with what council was looking for with the community enhancements.
“Maybe we aren’t addressing this with the right tool. I don’t know the answer – you take these things in isolation and say yes or no but we are not accomplishing the bigger picture,” Levisky said.
The councillors said the motivation behind the enhancements were how to keep the “small-community” feel in Cochrane.
Toews stated that all three enhancements were tied together and it would be best to defer all until the May 9 council meeting but Coun. Tara McFadden said she wanted to hear all the findings from the other two motions.
During the “increase setbacks between homes by one foot” motion discussion, the alternative to create larger lots or offer estate properties was proposed prompting more discussion by council.
Toews stood his ground on wanting more space between the houses saying he wanted to bring back the days of where kids played in their backyard as opposed to going to a community green space.
“Lets get away from the cookie-cutter and give families a little bit of space or a little bit of side room,” Toews said.
Levisky disagreed saying she thought the alternatives were a good compromise to what council was asking for. Coun. Ross Watson brought up that even if council set a policy to increase setbacks between homes by one foot, that in the end it could be up to the developer to build more narrow houses instead.
“That is the thing about neighbourhood plans is you need to name and designate them otherwise council has no opportunity to ensure it,” Watson said.
Coun. Mary Lou Davis-Eckmeier said she did not want to make a decision at the meeting and moved to defer the discussion to strategic planning session.
“I want to give people a little bit of extra privacy compared to what we have going – I want to give everyone something nice and provide options,” Toews said.
The third motion for the enhancements, homes closer than the proposed increased setbacks shall have no front driveways or street parking - brought little discussion after an already lengthy discussion with the other two motions.
Toews mentioned again that all three motions were tied together and there needed to be further discussion.
The three motions were all deferred to the May 9 council meeting.
The Town of Cochrane received a cheque from the Cochrane Curling club for $62,586.79 to go towards the Rock the Waves campaign.
The local campaign kicked off two years ago to help fundraise for the future aquatic/curling club facility. According to the website, more than $4.4 million out of the $10.6 million funding goal has already been raised.
Monies from the cheque were part of a grant that the curling club had previously applied for with the intention of donating the money towards the future centre.
Mayor and council approved $600,000 for the Headlands Pile Wall Construction and Slope Stability Project.
The issue was brought to the town in 2013 by concerned local residents about a failing slope and privately-owned gabion wall. The land is located in the Headlands subdivision, south of Highway 1A, with a water reservoir and while the gabion wall is on private property, the majority of the slope is located on town-owned land.
After an assessment, a slope remediation study showed the best approach would be to re-grade the slope and install concrete piles to stabilize the slope. The pile wall will be installed behind the gabion wall, to leave the existing gabion wall in place.
“Seeing this makes me nauseous – we need to make smarter decisions in the future but I support this movement,” said. Coun. McFadden.
Council unanimously approved to revise the 2016 budget to include the pile wall construction and slope stability project, for $600,000 to be funded from the water capital reserve.
Council unanimously approved the new Animal Bylaw on March 14.
Due to several issues with the old bylaw, the decision was made to make a new bylaw instead of making amendments to the existing one.
The new bylaw addresses a number of issues with improvements on the sections related to animals in heat, noise, number of animals in a person’s care in an off-leash area, threatening behaviours, and a new aggression scale to help peace officers and the court to gauge the severity of animals attacks.
Coun. Morgan Nagel brought forward a notice of motion to restrict buildings over four storeys high.
Nagel directed administration to bring forward an amendment to the land use bylaw to respect the maximum height of principal buildings within all land use districts in order to ensure a maximum height of no greater than four storeys is listed under permitted uses.
“All additional storeys proposed, up to a maximum of eight storeys, shall be listed as discretionary uses. Districts which do not currently list maximum heights greater than four storeys as permitted, shall remain unchanged… additionally, such amendment is to exclude the downtown heritage district,” Nagel proposed.
The amendment will be presented to a future council meeting.
Mayor and council went in-camera for approximately five minutes to discuss securing a site for permanent future public washrooms.
For the past three years, the town’s economic development staff has been exploring options to move the Visitors Information Centre (VIC) and public washrooms to First Street.
With the push from Historical Downtown and a few sites recently becoming available, the potential land was discussed behind closed doors.
The past focus has been on securing a location in the provincial building, that would work in co-ordination with the Centennial Plaza but when a site was not secured by early 2015, temporary washrooms were put in place over the summer months. According to the council agenda, administration will continue to work with the province on options for the Centennial Plaza site. And once a site is secured, the location and timeline will be shared with the Historic Downtown Cochrane Business Committee, and the community.
After the recent decision to remove garburators, as previously reported by the Eagle, senior manager of infrastructure Rick Deans discussed moving forward with the sustainability plan with the goal to treat water as a precious resource.
Administration asked for approval to adjust the calculation for wastewater volumes for residential customers. The new calculation would adjust calculations for residential premises with and without account history, apartment style condominiums with irrigation accounts, and non-residential premises – the account history would be for residents who had an account with water consumption from the previous winter period, November to April.
According to the agenda, “The proposed calculation for residential premises with account history uses the water consumption from the previous winter period to determine a monthly average. The average would then be applied to the account during the summer months (May to October inclusive) as the monthly wastewater consumption.”
Coun. Toews disagreed with the three-tier water system.
“I hate it – I think it is hypocritical and we need to get rid of it,” Toews said.
Cochrane has utilized winter averaging to determine the volume of wastewater for residential customers since 1993 and Deans said he believes the town’s water conservation efforts are working.
“Residents are doing a good job with water conservation,” Deans said.
Four other communities in Alberta also implement the winter-averaging system; administration said they believe it provides a fair and equitable billing method for residents.
Council approved the authorization for the calculation adjustment with the sustainability plan to be discussed further in future council meetings.
Public hearing for carwash set
A public hearing was set for March 29 at 6 p.m. to voice opinions to add a carwash as a discretionary use in Heritage Hills.
The developer had previously applied to build a carwash in the area in 2007. The conditions of the approval were not met and the deadline and the approval expired. When the applicant reapplied for the development permit in 2012, residents raised concerns about the facility operating too close to residential property, and the issue of noise was also raised. The developer revised to move to carwash closer to Highway 1A and proposed a manual wash instead of automatic to reduce noise.
Residents are encouraged to voice their opinions regarding the issue at the March 29 council meeting at the RancheHouse.
