COCHRANE— A petition launched by a Riviera resident is hoping to inspire the Town of Cochrane to purchase a lot of land on the west side of the community to create a green space and park.
The online petition was launched by Riviera resident Chris Parsons.
There is an unused parcel of land in the west end of the neighbourhood owned by Tamani Communities. The section is currently zoned for multi-family residential use.
Parsons launched the petition to see if there was an interest in his neighbourhood to develop the parcel into a community hub with outdoor amenities. The petition has garnered 252 signatures as of Tuesday (Jan. 26).
“The response has been quite good,” Parsons said. “That was just the starting point just to see if there’s an interest in the people who live near me.”
Parsons is exploring if an outdoor rink and an outdoor community gathering space could be built in the area.
“I just thought that it might be nicer to have a nice park that was nearby that was a little bit more for the older kids, there’s the high school up in Riversong, and there are some older kids who are going to be in the neighbourhood too,” Parsons said. “It would be nice if we had something that would be an outdoor rink or maybe even a park with some picnic tables so people in the neighbourhood could get together in the summer."
Parsons said he would like to see if it would be possible for the Town to re-zone the land, valued at $2 million, and help community members purchase and develop the park. He proposed paying the cost through property taxes over 25 years.
“If it is possible we would need a lot of help from Town Council,” Parsons said. “There’s a number of neighbours that are interested.”
Town of Cochrane acting general manager of development and community services Riley Welden said to his knowledge there is no precedence of a municipality purchasing land based on a petition.
Land-use re-designation requests typically come from the landowner. Welden added buying land with a set intended purpose and then rezoning has not typically been a practice of the Town.
The Town has an established process for land use changes, Welden said, and one of the key pieces is to determine the effect and impact of a piece of land on a neighbourhood— This would be considered when evaluating the proposal.
Welden encouraged residents with questions to reach out to the Town to learn more about municipality planning.
For a petition to be presented to the Town of Cochrane it must meet standards set by the Municipal Government Act, said Jaylene Knight Town of Cochrane manager of legislative services.
Any petitions given to the Town go through Knight’s office who then brings the document before council.
Specific pieces are required for a petition to be sufficient based on the Municipal Government Act— These include a printed surname, printed given name, initials, a signature, a street address, a telephone number or email address, the date and each signature is required to be witnessed.
The act states that 10 per cent of the population of a municipality are are erquired to participate— This equates to about 3,000 people in Cochrane.
If a petition meets these requirements council has the option of providing direction to Town administration on how to proceed.
Petitions can be provided to council as information even if the document does not meet the requirements set by the Municipal Government Act. Knight said the document is shared to ensure council is aware of an issue being raised by Cochrane residents.
“We feel it important for council to understand what’s happening in the community,” Knight said. “Something where a resident is requiring council to make a change via a petition, we feel it’s important to council to be advised of that so they understand this issue is coming forward.”
A statement was provided to The Cochrane Eagle from Tamani Communities.
"The approved land use for the site allows for a range of multi-family type developments and is in a great location with river frontage along the north side of the property. At this time, we are looking to sell the land at market value. If the Town is interested in purchasing the property from us at market value, we would certainly consider the offer, along with all offers."
