Mayor Ivan Brooker was pleased with many outcomes from the Monday September 12, council meeting.

There was a lot of talk about growth management for the town, and Brooker is pleased to see developers stepping up to the plate.

One hot button issue was the land use amendment for Heritage Hills which will see the re-designation of just under 70 hectares of land. Although occupancy potentially not occurring until 2018, Councillors McFadden, Eckmeier, and Nagel were against adding more homes to the subdivision which has big traffic headaches.

Brooker was pleased the vote was in favour to proceed with development.

"From my perspective it is still a community where we need to do more in. It's not a complete community by any stretch of the imagination, it's lacking in parks, it should have more pathway connections. I really liked the notion of along Highway 1A there would be three intersections with full signalization so there would be a better opportunity for Heritage Hills residents to get out on the 1A Highway."

The other massive advantage for Brooker was when Brookfield Residential offered to fully develop Township Road 262 prior to building. In Brooker's eyes this secondary access is an absolute win.

"That provides a secondary access in and out not for just the new residents but even the existing residents. So even if traffic is bad on Highway 1A, you can just scoot north, get on 262, come out by the seminary and come down Highway 22. I felt that was a really big contribution not just for the new development but the existing residents."

It is no secret Brooker is not a fan of freezing development. Council had an opportunity to discuss Councillor Morgan Nagel's Notice of Motion to temporarily freeze residential development until the Town of Cochrane has two important criteria met; right of ways to facilitate a new bridge across the Bow and a full financial commitment from the NDP government for the intersection of Highway 1A and 22.

Brooker made a surprise announcement at the evening meeting, sharing a verbal agreement has been made regarding the long anticipated bridge.

"We now have a verbal agreement on that road alignment on the south side so that would tie from the bridge in short term to River Heights Drive and ultimately on to James Walker Trail. It is a really big win from the Town and developers perspective that we got this done, because council said there will be no land use granted on the south side of the river until those things are in place."

Brooker says timelines have not changed at this point, they still anticipate a completion date of 2018/19.

Mayor Brooker is not saying the flood gates should be open on development, but freezing growth has serious negative connotation to it, from his perspective.

"It's not good for business, it's not good for that competitive advantage that Cochrane has always had, and lastly you can't tie sponsorship necessarily to what is happening in the market but that does happen."

Brooker commented that sponsors for certain projects in town were seemingly shaky if Cochrane was to put a freeze on development. In Brooker's mind, if Cochranites want certain amenities in town the way to achieve them is to allow development to continue so we can reap the benefits of sponsorship and off site levies.

"I am definitely happy that last night we sent a message that freezing growth is definitely not going to solve our traffic issues, it would have a lot of negative connotations on how people view Cochrane from a settlement perspective."

All of Cochrane Council minus Morgan Nagel agreed to defeat the motion that would see development temporarily suspended.