Town councillor Tara McFadden has brought to a head a long discussed need to examine the downtown parking situation in Cochrane.

Town council unanimously supported McFadden's recent motion to undertake a comprehensive look at what is currently available, what the needs are and how the issue should be addressed. 

McFadden said the redevelopment and expansion of the downtown core has left the town's policies out of step with what's unfolding.

"We're a growing community, a prosperous community and we trying to draw more people into our downtown core to live and work here so businesses can do well. We also need to make sure we have a parking strategy that makes that possible. We need to make it easy for our residents to get into our downtown core and easy for people who shop here to get into our downtown core and support our local businesses."

McFadden is one of council's representatives on the Cochrane Planning Commission and says they constantly wrestle with how to deal with downtown parking issues. The existing strategy dates back to 2004 when Cochrane was a completely different community.

"It really became evident through working with the CPC that some of our policies were behind the times, not adequate."

The first step will be to review the current inventory of parking available on town and private land and then determine how to move forward. That includes examining potential public/private partnerships and developing a cash-in-lieu strategy.

McFadden hopes to see the inventory completed during the peak summer traffic and the strategy developed during the fall in time for work to begin in 2018. 

Senior planner Drew Hyndman told council the parking study will displace some other undertakings of the planning department and warned some other planning projects will likely be delayed.

Council, though, wasn't discouraged from supporting the motion.

"I think there certainly is room for this important project on the priority list," says McFadden. 

"This is one of those tasks that you need to do to manage Cochrane's growth."

Just exactly how it will unfold will be better known after town council's upcoming spring budget adjustment.