Kamloops This Week December 30, 2020

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2020 | Volume 33 No. 66

Periods of snow High 0 C Low -3 C SNOW REPORT

KTW

Sun Peaks Resort Mid-mountain: 125 cm Alpine: 129 cm Harper Mountain 73 cm

PANDEMIC IN PHOTOS

HELP KTW HELP OTHERS

Two pages of images from a year like no other

Free Radicals Hockey Club skates in with its largest-ever donation to the cause

PAGES A10-A11

PAGE A5

Billion-dollar plan to span 15 years

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? A look back at stories and newsmakers

JESSICA WALLACE STAFF REPORTER jessica@kamloopsthisweek.com

DAVE EAGLES/KTW Antonio Ramunno with his Wallgym invention — an all-in-one compact exercise station designed for people with mobility issues.

Wallgym creator carries on JESSICA WALLACE

STAFF REPORTER

jessica@kamloopsthisweek.com

The COVID-19 pandemic made 2020 a tough year for getting word out on the Wallgym, but its inventor, Antonio Ramunno, has used the time to develop a new

version of his compact fitness system to better serve people with mobility issues like his own. A motorcycle accident in October 2014 that left Ramunno paralyzed from the chest down led him to build the six-foot-high, 3.5-feet-wide device that attaches to walls to continue rehabilitation

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after his physiotherapy ended. He then started selling the resistance training devices, gearing them to people with strength and mobility issues to gain more independence and to others whose equipment takes up too much space. See SECOND, A6

The project manager behind big plans — $1 billion worth of development built out over 15 years — for Tranquille said the project is “for Kamloops” and community engagement will begin in the new year. Project manager Tim McLeod lives on the property west of Kamloops Airport and has been hired by property owner British Columbia Wilderness Tours to oversee the neighbourhood plan, describing the vision for the area as an “agri-hood.” He said he has been working alongside a Lower Mainland developer, Ignition Group, conducting due diligence over the past three years. Ignition has a contract to purchase the property. To envision what is intended to be developed on the former sanatorium grounds, McLeod suggested picturing a village like Sun Rivers on Kamloops Lake and inside city boundaries, complete with residential and commercial buildings, a developer-subsidized day care (not a school, as previously reported), a community centre, a country lakefront inn, a city park, a boat launch, trails, a farm, a market and a winery. McLeod described plans for Tranquille as a family-friendly community, with 1,500 mixed housing units (from apartments to cottages)

and interesting enough to draw people. The village will include waterfront pathways, lookouts, viewpoints and enhanced access to Kamloops Lake and Tranquille River via Kamloops’ only lakefront municipal park. “We will not be calling it a tourism development because it’s a neighbourhood — a neighbourhood with a lot of interesting things that will draw tourists, absolutely,” McLeod said. He said community engagement will take place in the new year: meetings by zoom with dozens of non-profits interested in the area, consulting community partners like Tourism Kamloops, Venture Kamloops and the North Shore Business Improvement Association and public meetings. “We want to put these ideas out there and get people talking so that we have a really clear picture, because this development is for Kamloops,” McLeod said, noting many families have ties to the area. “We’re not building something for people who don’t live here … Our first thought is we’re North Shore. We have been North Shore for 100 years and we’re now redeveloping a portion of the North Shore.” Asked what has changed from previous plans for Tranquille — one that included a golf course — McLeod cited farm boundaries. See EXCHANGE, A20

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