By Chad Klassen

Pickleball courts, multi-use gym among ideas for more recreation facilities

Oct 3, 2018 | 3:51 PM

KAMLOOPS — After two nights of open houses, the city’s Parks and Recreation department is closer to finishing its master plan. 

The city heard from residents on both sides of the city as to what they would like to see, and Parks and Recreation will now compile all the suggestions and turn it into a report for city council. A large contingent of pickleball players attended Monday night’s open house and want more courts around the city. It’s one of the suggestions that’s been brought up during the two recreation open houses. 

“On Monday night, we had a large representation from the pickleball club. They’re certainly lobbying for more outdoor pickleball courts,” said the Recreation, Health and Wellness Supervisor at the City of Kamloops Linda Stride. “We also heard from squash and disc golf as far as the need for more space for them.”

The Kamloops Disc Golf Club is still in the running to share the old McArthur Island Golf Course with the Kamloops Naturalist Club, which also came to Tuesday night’s open house.  

“Last night at McArthur Island was a really great representation. Citizens who came out and a variety of clubs and associations,” noted Stride. “With that one, we heard a lot about the preservation of green space, connectivity between parks and green spaces. We also heard from citizens in the McDonald Park area as far as being able to increase activity there.”

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A big idea that was brought up on Tuesday night was a multi-use indoor facility. 

“The opportunity with the multi-use gymnasium facility really had a lot to do with indoor winter training for a lot of groups like softball, fastball, slo-pitch. They don’t have indoor facilities to be able to do any kind of winter training, offseason training.” 

The city says a report on the findings will be ready next moth before a draft of the recreation master plan is ready to be presented to council in the new year. 

“The report will give us recommendations. We, as administration, will take that to council and council will then direct administration where they’d like us to further explore,” said Stride. “The plan will not have anything to do with budgeting, so no numbers will be attached to the plan. It’ll simply be, ‘here’s what we heard and here’s what we think for a community of your size needs, and here are some gaps the community is missing.’”