Kelowna Mountain developer says project will be 'moving forward'

A Kelowna developer appears to be turning his attention back toward a long controversial real estate project, according to a recently posted YouTube video.

Mark Consiglio said he’s retired “all the debts at Kelowna Mountain” and is “looking forward to moving forward.”

In the brief video update, Consiglio said he, his wife and their six children moved to Vancouver to double down on a project they hoped would allow them to return to Kelowna Mountain.

Consiglio also uses the platform to take a swipe at the media coverage he’s received over the years.

“We were called abandoned and all these other things, which was not true— never was. There was a substantial amount of vandalism as a result of that media coverage,” he said.

The last social media post from Kelowna Mountain, before the video, was in July.

In that Facebook post they said they are closed this year due to COVID-19, because a two-metre separation would not have been possible on the four bridges.

The Kelowna Mountain story began more than a decade ago when Consiglio bought three parcels of land totalling 640 acres just south of the City of Kelowna boundary off Gillard Creek Forest Service Road.

He pursued various visions for the project including a ski hill and large residential development but all of them stalled before regulatory bodies like the Central Okanagan Regional District.

READ MORE:  Kelowna Mountain coverage

Most recently, it’s been stalled in various legal proceedings.

It was 2019 when it first seemed as though he'd be refocusing on the project. That's when all creditors for the development reached agreements to sell their interests to a Vancouver developer.

“Things could be happening there very soon, I think,” lawyer Reinhard Burke told iNFOnews.ca, Feb. 27, 2019.