Gymnastics club near Vernon gets Regional Board support to stay

COLDSTREAM, B.C. – A popular gymnastics club near Vernon has cleared its first hurdle toward staying on farm land it’s occupied since 2009.

Regional District of the North Okanagan directors voted in favour of allowing the Okanagan Rhythmic Gymnastic Club to remain at the site as long as a new building occupancy permit is granted by inspectors.

“We’re very pleased,” said parent Adelle Munk. “We were concerned because facilities like this in the Okanagan are hard to come by and programs like this are second to none. The possibility of it being shut down was extremely upsetting.”

The decision also means a favourable recommendation will be forwarded to the B.C. Agriculture Land Commission, which governs buildings and operations on designated Agriculture Land Reserve Property which the gym currently occupies.

About 150 supporters packed Wednesday afternoon’s meeting.

“I’m excited to have the support of so many people and to have the support of the board going into the Agricultural Land Commission,” said club owner Camille Martens, a Canadian Olympic rhythmic gymnast who competed in Atlanta in 1996.

But Martens is still confused on what she’ll need to provide to satisfy a new building permit.

“I’m hoping that engineers and construction experts can fill us in on the on the full end of that,” she said.

Martens said the last two years have been difficult and distracted because of the complaint that lead to the review of their occupancy on farm land in the BX-Swan Lake neighbourhood.

“The whole investigation has been fraught with a lot of difficult things,” Martens said. “I just got a letter from the wife of the husband who made the initial complaint and she told me that it was made from in this office and that it never should have gone because it was made with malicious intent. So the fact that it was made from in this office and then investigated from within this office helps me understand why it’s been a two year nightmare.”

The District took the complaint and reviewed the club’s original building permit application and found little supporting information for why construction was permitted. The employee who granted the permit is said to no longer be with the District.

What I hope is that as we move forward I understand that none of those things actually impact the part with the Agricultural Land Commission,” she said. “But what I would hope is that in the future, if people have these kinds of issues they would be able to avoid the kind of exhausting journey that we’ve been on for two full years.”