Major Land-Use Bylaw Rewrite Impacts All Residents

Just how important is the comprehensive review and rewrite of Cochrane's Land-Use Bylaw to residents and builders? Extremely.

The reality is, Cochrane has outgrown its land-use bylaw (LUB) and the long-anticipated comprehensive review and rewrite is essential to guiding development in one of the fastest growing towns in the country.

It has been 14 years since the current bylaw was adapted (although there have been amendments along the way), back when the town had a population of 12,418 people. We now number over 27,000 people and have added 6,000 dwellings in the last 10 years.

"This rapid growth presented Cochrane with new and diverse development trends with an ever-increasing level of complexity," Senior Planner Riley Welden explained to council. "As the size and scale of development continued to rise, so too did the development pressure and nature of the planning challenges facing the community."

For most people, though, it remains in the background until they decide to make changes to their property or to build.

"A lot of people don't realize that it affects them until they have to come in and get a permit and understand what the rules and regulations are from a permitting perspective," explains Welden. "That's when you deal with setbacks from property lines, how big a structure can be on your property, how tall structures like a garage can be, how far it has to be setback from the rear and side property lines. Say you want to build a suite above your garage; there are regulations around that as well."

By first going out and providing that basic understanding it opens the door for a meaningful dialogue. 

"We're taking a two-part approach where we want to first go out and help residents and businesses understand what the land-use bylaw is, why it's important and how it affects them," says Welden. "I think that's a critical first step in this process. You can't really expect to go out and get any meaningful type of input or feedback when people don't truly know what the land-use bylaw is."

"The land-use bylaw touches every aspect of the community because it is the tool that controls and regulates how land is used and how it's developed and that's for every single parcel within the Town of Cochrane. So, it does affect everyone in the community and that's why it's such a critically important document.

The land-use bylaw review team has been reaching out since entering phase 2 of the review in March that is expected to continue until August.

The next public engagement session is Thursday night (Apr. 19) at St. Timothy High School, 501 Sunset Dr., from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

It's followed by these three sessions: