COCHRANE— Cochrane’s Parks and Recreation Committee reached a major milestone in the planning of the Horse Creek Sports Park, when it approved the revamped plans during a committee meeting last Tuesday (Aug. 3).
The major change in the plans for the park was the exclusion of a Southland Transportation bus depot, which keeps the focus of the project on recreation, said Parks and Rec Committee chair, Tara McFadden.
“Not having Southland in there is a significant change, but I think it’s a really great change and allowed that site to be focused around recreation,” McFadden said. “It truly is going to be a community space above all. I think we really responded to what we were hearing as a group, that we have a need for more recreation spaces.”
McFadden said she wanted to ensure that there were no “conflicts” built into the plans for the park, and the exclusion of Southland in the plans ensures user enjoyment and gives more space to develop recreational facilities.
“One of the things I like about the project is the conversations we’re having about connectivity, and we’re planning for how you can engage and connect through the site. There is the walkability and connectivity in the site, but then we were also very deliberate about how it connects to Heritage Hills and transit and how vehicles move through the site,” she said. “I’m a big believer, as a complete community, that we have mixed uses throughout the community, I think it works better, but sometimes they’re just not compatible, and that was one that I just wasn’t comfortable with.”
The Town of Cochrane has had a need for more recreational space, McFadden said, like the Horse Creek Sports Park, and other recreational spaces.
As various organizations in town look at recreation projects, like the Horse Creek Sports Park, the expansion of the Great Trail and other projects, Cochrane is making strides in the right direction, McFadden said.
“Cochrane is a very desirable place to live, and we have a very active, recreationally-minded community, and there are so many things they want to do. Each of these projects, each of these visions just makes Cochrane a desirable place to be,” she said.
The approval of the final design plans is the last step in the planning process before they are presented to Town Council.
“This work is going to be presented to council, and council will set the direction from there. There are still big questions to answer,” McFadden said. “We have some ballpark costs, but from this, we can get a clearer picture of those costs.”
Currently, the project is not included in the 10-year capital plan, McFadden said, and Town Council’s next tasks will be to create a final budget, financing strategy, operational governance models and to create and implement a phased approach for the construction of the park.
This phase represents the initial planning of the park, and there is no firm timeline in place as of now in terms of when the project may be completed, but McFadden said she expects to see the plans presented to council this fall.
COVID-19 interrupted many of the plans and projects the Town was looking at as it forced their priority to shift to providing services through the pandemic, and the Horse Creek Sports Park was one of those projects that were delayed.
To reach this milestone now after more than a year of planning, working with user groups and delegations was very exciting, McFadden said.
“It just shows that recreation is a passion for so many people in Cochrane and it’s something that people really want to have in their future,” she said.
