Support or disapprove, a new dog park is coming to the pipeline corridor on the north side of Quigley Drive.

Not to be confused with a shared off leash pathway or multi use area, this park will be Cochrane's first ever official dog park.

The dog park was identified in 2012 as part of the Open Space Master Plan with construction taking place in 2017. Gerry Murphy, Town of Cochrane, Parks and Open Spaces Manager, says they have received lots of positive feedback thus far, and are looking forward to show the public the plans.

"We want the public to see what it is we're building and to maybe understand that some of the changes we made to the design were meant to alleviate some of the concerns by the residents that were going to be immediately adjacent to the dog park. Really it's an information session."

While not necessarily a done deal, Murphy says the town has spent a good amount of time on conceptualizing, listening to feedback, and coming up with a plan they feel is pretty good design.

"We had a community consultation meeting with basically a smaller gathering of the adjacent land owners that would be backing onto that, because if anyone was to have concerns it would be those owners. So we brought an initial design draft, if you will, to the meeting so they had a look at it and some had some concerns about the design which I think we have addressed in a new and improved rendition of a chain link fence and some more trees. We have moved some features away from residences and in most cases we will be improving the privacy they have now."

Initailly parking was another concern but Murphy feels they have come up with a solution.

"What we did as far as the plan was to include dedicated dog park parking to the north end of the dog park and then we have also been in negotiations with the Baptist Church and they are graciously going to allocate us sections of  their parking Monday- Saturday, so we are actually increasing parking in that area."

Although Murphy believes town administration has really tried listening to residential concerns surrounding the dog park nothing as of yet is set in stone.

"If there is some glaring deficiencies we haven't thought of and if someone brings them to our attention we can always tweak the design if that is what is needed. I think we are pretty close, at least at 90%, but we haven't gone out to tender yet, so there is time."

Council approved a budget of $300,000 for the first phase which should be completed by end of September 2017.

The dog park open house will occur on Monday, March 6, from 7-9 pm at the Cochrane RancheHouse, to see more plans go here.

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Consultation For New Dog Park Commences Soon