Dana Point Planning Commission sets hours for embattled Headlands bluff-top trail – Orange County Register

The Dana Point Planning Commission has set public hours Monday evening for accessing the Bluff Top Trail through the Dana Point Headlands Preserve.

Since a 2022 court order, the trail is supposed to be open daily from 7 a.m. to sunset; commissioners made the schedules official with the permit approved Monday evening.

But the city and the Center for Natural Land Management have been at odds for years over how much time the public should have on the trail, with center officials saying Monday night that the city had overstepped the bounds in issuing the permit on their lands.

The Center for Natural Lands Management, with a grant from the Steel Foundation, purchased the land from developer Sanford Edward in 2005 for $11.9 million with the goal of preserving the endangered Pacific pocket mouse. disappearance, and the California gnatcatcher, which inhabit the blufftop.

As required by the Promontory Development and Conservation Plan, the CNLM is responsible for preservation and daily management, and the public path, for which the City has an easement, must also be accessible.

The trail, opened in 2009, had the same opening hours until the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when the trail was closed by the CNLM. Once reopened, access was restricted until 2022 and until court ordered.

Since then, the California Coastal Commission has said a conditional use permit must be obtained to establish public use hours on the trail, which the Planning Commission did Monday evening.

Sarah Mueller, an attorney for CNLM, spoke at the meeting in opposition to the city’s permit application. The group is concerned that too much public access could affect the health of the pocket mouse population.

“The city, although holding a conservation easement, does not have a legal basis to apply for a development permit to manage the preserve, including the trail,” she said. “The city’s request was submitted without our consent and without informing the relevant federal and state wildlife protection agencies. This unilateral action by the city not only does not take into account our property and management rights, but also contradicts the Local Coastal Program, which designates the CNLM to set schedules.

The public has been cut off from access to this area of ​​the coast for decades, with it first owned by a private community and then blocked off for development, said Eric Nelson, vice chairman of the Planning Commission .

“History repeats itself and history has shown that access to the coastal region has been intermittent,” he said of the current guarantee of public access. “We had legal challenges and issues with the gates, and at one point a property owner tried to lock down the community. Now we have an owner who wants to control access.

“As a public agency, an agency that holds access rights, it is our duty to make them available to the public,” he said.

A handful of people from the public spoke at Monday’s meeting, all but one pleading for greater public access.

“Dana Point residents have almost no access to wilderness areas,” said Capo Beach resident Toni Nelson, adding that in her review of the staff report and correspondence regarding the problems, she had not seen lots of data on the damage caused by keeping the area open. “There is very little documentation of the alleged damage.”

Heather Johnston, executive director of Visit Dana Point, also supported the city’s proposed trail hours.

“The local trail is a significant tourist attraction,” she said. “We believe the trails promote responsible tourism.”

The half-mile trail – accessible via Scenic Drive or North Selva Road – extends through the preserve, which is home to mice and other native coastal plants, animals and birds.

The pocket mouse was thought to be extinct until one was found on the headlands in 1993.

There are now three mouse colonies, some at Camp Pendleton, a population transplanted to Laguna Coast Wilderness Park from mice raised at the San Diego Zoo, and the Headlands population. In 2020, there were 77 mice there.

City officials are also concerned about how the CNLM is handling the rebound in the pocket mouse population on the reserve, including refusing to cross-breed the mice with other colonies and questioning whether the group is managing the reserve in an ideal way for the mouse. habitat.

In a letter to the California Coastal Commission, the city says CNLM “has failed to expend its resources” on vegetation management, which Fish and Wildlife studies show is “most important.” for “mouse health”. Studies and correspondence from scientists associated with state and federal wildlife agencies also strongly advocate mouse interbreeding.

“CNLM has refused to comply with resource agency recommendations to cross-breed mice from the Headlands with mice from the two other known habitats,” the city letter sent this month states. “This poses a threat of genetic inbreeding that could decimate the Headlands mouse.”

City officials say, based on internal CNLM emails obtained as part of the 2022 lawsuit, that the organization wants to save its financial resources for projects other than managing the reserve and that is why, City Attorney Patrick Munoz said, they oppose longer trail hours. .

In the past, the center proposed that the trail be open four days a week, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the summer and until 4 p.m. in the winter.

A statement released Tuesday by the public relations agency representing CNLM said the city made “false statements during the public meeting” in an effort to smear the group’s name and misrepresent its “continued commitment to maintaining the public access to the preserve, our close collaboration with the USFWS on conservation, and our decades of support for the Dana Point community.

Mueller said the group’s main concern when it comes to access is the delicate ecosystem.

“Since the trail opened in 2009, visitation has increased and put enormous pressure on the habitat and its species, particularly the pocket mouse,” she said. “Their existence is precarious to say the least.

“In 2009 there were 87, then 57, then 6,” she said of the effects of the period when trail access was at its peak. “We are not seeking to prohibit public access, but to create chances of survival for this endangered species.”

The number of mice now living in the Headlands Preserve suggests otherwise, Munoz said. “The objective facts and available data demonstrate that daily public access to the trail, as required by the Headlands Development and Conservation Plan, does not pose a threat to (the mouse). The only “threat” to the reserve is the result of the conscious decision of the CNLM not to expend its considerable financial resources to properly manage the reserve.

The Center for Natural Lands Management could appeal the Planning Commission’s decision to the City Council or also file an appeal with the California Coastal Commission.

Munoz said the new schedules take effect immediately.