Incumbent Morgan Nagel and newcomer Marni Fedeyko came out flying at the first meeting of the new town council, Oct. 23, with two notices of motion for council to consider at a future meeting.

In an extensive motion, Nagel wants a comprehensive list of development prepared by the town planning department to give council and residents a full understanding of just how much has been approved or at various points of approval. What he suspects is there is likely little room for further residential developments within the corporate limits after all the plans in the works are fully built out.

"It really struck me during the campaign that not a lot of people fully understand just how much development we've approved," says Nagel.

"I realized then that none of the candidates really understand that basically 95 per cent of Cochrane has already been approved for development. We cannot be looking at approving anymore once we get real with these numbers."

Other than infill, he believes the only two areas left for development would be Rolling Range Estates and the land currently occupied by the Cochrane and District Agricultural Society, which is owned by Rocky View County.

"Before council sees anything in regards to residential development, I want everybody to be clear just how many homes have been approved and what stage of the development process they're reached. At a high level, the area structure plan level, I suspect we're close if not over 10,000 approved homes and I held back from ever using that in the campaign because I never knew with exact certainty just how many thousand, but there's literally thousands of homes."

He says annual growth has often exceeded four per cent and has climbed to as high as 12 per cent and it has reached the point where the town is falling behind on funding upgrading and maintaining existing infrastructure. 

While presenting the draft budget, Paige Milner, senior manager of corporate services, did red flag the need for further funds to be set aside in reserve to meet anticipated costs of maintaining infrastructure. 

Nagel will be seeking to have the planning dept. present the report to council on Dec. 11. 

Improving communications was a large part of Fedeyko's campaign and she gave notice that she wants council to consider having administration prepare a report on the potential of live streaming council meetings, including anticipated costs.