After two years of negotiations with land owners, the town now has the crucial land agreements in place for the road alignment for the new bridge across the Bow River.

The final piece fell into place at Monday night's council meeting with approval of land-use amendments to Southbow Landing, clearing the way for Tuesday afternoon's announcement that a land agreement had been finalized. The parties had previously reached an agreement, pending approval of adjustments.

"It was absolutely crucial," says Mayor Ivan Brooker. "It was the trigger. Now we get our road rightaways and we can move forward with our full planning."

"For the last three or four months I've been personally involved as well in the conversation to get us to this point and last night was the crucial component to everything coming together."

The town was seeking 100 per cent assurance of the road alignment and with confidence had started that planning. Still, getting that agreement in place weighed heavy upon Brooker's mind since returning refreshed from holidays.

"Sometimes you only get road alignments as development occurs, but we didnt want that to happen this time. We wanted 100 per cent certainty that the road dedication and alignment would never change so we had to go through the whole process to make sure we had the entire road dedication upfront before any development started."

Now the town will take the bridge design to 30 per cent completion, then tender the balance of the project. Construction is expected to start in 2018 with completion in 2020. The town will also be seeking approval from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to work in the river. In the meantime, the expansion and alignment of Griffin Road is well underway on the northside of the river, made possible by a previous land agreement.

Mayor Brooker praises the town administration team and the three landowners involved in making it happen. Green Drop Rock Products, Tamani Communities and Philco Farm all had land impacted by the bridge alignment and the town was able to swap, as opposed to purchase, land from these three companies. There was some cash compensation to Green Drop Rock Products for costs associated with moving their weigh scales and wash plant in order to accommodate a traffic circle that's part of the southside road design, says Brooker.

Bridging the gap has been examined in earnest for almost two decades and became a controversial issue in the early 2000s well before the residential areas now existing on the south side of the river and even before the completion of the Bow Valley High School, also controversial at the time. The bridge location now being developed was agreed upon in 2002 and before then other locations had been given consideration.

Thus the sigh of relief of Mayor Brooker.

 "It has been a struggle and I'm just been thankful that the last couple of years everyone has finally come together and agreed upon its the need. Once we all agreed on the need, we started the design and road aligments."

"It was a long time in the making, but its a good day for Cochrane. We got it done."

All in with road work and the bridge, the project is estimated to cost $53.5 million in the town's current 10-Year Capital Financial Strategy.