Whether the rest of town council is willing to support the development of lower density neighbourhoods continues to be tested by Councillor Morgan Nagel.

Nagel has made a notice of motion to direct town administration to draft a new low-density residential land-use zone, “residential estates.” It follows on the doorstep of a motion he made in January to consider broadening density targets and aims to reduce the overall housing density in the community.

He purposes the new zoning can be used to increase the variety of housing options, by zoning for very low-density housing and acreages in areas where high-density housing is not supported by the community.

"Adding a fourth zoning will give us a greater level of housing diversity in Cochrane," says Nagel. "I feel we don't have the zoning tools available to encourage traditional-style neighbourhoods that match the look and feel of our older communities like Riverview, Bow Meadows, Rolling Range Estates and Gleneagles. By adding in one more low-density zone would do a lot of really good things for Cochrane and makes sense."

He says high-density housing makes sense in neighbourhoods where it's supported but there are some communities that are absolutely opposed. That includes Gleneagles, where he heard outrage expressed at a recent open house over the ongoing discussion to develop high-density homes on what's referred to as the Jones Estate development, 4.15 acres of land residents say they had been assured would be left untouched.

"People aren't just a little bit upset about the development issue in Cochrane, they are absolutely furious," says Nagel. "The room was quite heated and in a different setting and I would say fistfights would have broken out at the meeting. It was a very heated discussion between the development industry and the residents of Gleneagles."

He says besides density the Gleneagle issue also centres around slope stability, an issue that did plaque some homes in the community in the past.

Nagel says the discussion on housing density is directly related to the traffic issue.

"These high-density zones change the overlook feel of our neighbourhoods but they also contribute to traffic problems in Cochrane. It's pretty simple arithmetic; the more houses you put in a given area, the more cars you're going to have on the roads in that area. And we're squeezing in more and more houses but not expanding our roads at an appropriate corresponding rate.

He's hoping council will support the motion so it can be added as another option before any new significant residential developments are approved.

Mayor Jeff Genung says residential density was touched upon during council's Feb. 9 strategic planning session but was only one of the items discussed.

"We came up with a bunch of things that we want to do as priorities and that was just one of them. We didn't talk about it at length because we are having an informal information session on Tuesday."