By Con Garretson
IJ reporter
Sunday, March
20, 2005 - The Bay Trail segment planned for Hamilton Field has come under
scrutiny by neighboring residents concerned about its placement, impact on
surrounding natural areas and the lack of a link to nearby trails.
About
a dozen Novato residents, most of them homeowners living at the former military
base, weighed in on a preliminary trail design unveiled at a meeting Thursday at
the Marin Humane Society that was led by representatives of the Bay Conservation
and Development Commission.
"This is a proposal at the present time that
we are fine-tuning to take in front of the decision-makers, and it is subject to
some change," BCDC official Steve Goldbeck said at meeting's end. "We will be
taking your thoughts back as we go back and have our excellent design team try
to finalize this in record time."
The nearly 2.7-mile trail, 13 years in
the making, would run behind homes and businesses alongside a levee from Pacheco
Pond to the southern boundary of the former base. The levee will separate
developed areas from the former airfields that are planned to be reverted
incrementally to wetlands over the next decade.
BCDC's design review
board is to review the trail plans and take formal public input next month, when
the Novato City Council is also expected to discuss the project. The Regional
Water Quality Control Board will consider a related permit in June before the
main BCDC board considers final design approval in July.
Trail-related
work is expected to start later this year.
The Hamilton Field trail
would be a segment of the Bay Trail, an envisioned 400-mile recreational
corridor encircling the Bay Area. The trail project is connected to the
restoration of 700 acres of reclaimed and paved lands with 10.6 million cubic
yards of tested bay mud that will be imported via an offshore pipeline system.
An additional 2,600 acres to the north may be added to the project of
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Coastal Conservancy.
Runners, bicyclists, dog walkers and others currently traverse parts of
the existing levee informally, but the planned 12-foot-wide paved trail would be
located just off the levee, mostly on the bay side, in order to provide privacy
to residents whose homes abut the levee.
Some residents questioned the
alignment, saying trail users would have a "tunnel" effect by being placed
between the levee and barriers, including berms and vegetation that would
provide a buffer between the trail and habitat for threatened and endangered
species such as the California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse.
Hamilton resident Marin Hoch said she has been following trail options
and developments for five years. She expressed concern that the proposed design
is being aired too close to the decision timeline, limiting public input for
possible revisions.
"It could be like being in a parking lot, with the
public access pathway two or three feet lower than the construction road with a
big vegetative border. Is anyone going to want to walk down there?" Hoch asked.
Another issue of contention was the southern terminus of the trail,
which stops 700 feet shy of connecting to a trail system on Las Gallinas
Sanitary District land. Some questioned why a link cannot be made, arguing
people will travel between the two trails anyway.
"I understand in the
future there will be a (trail) connection to the north, and I've heard many
times that the southern connection can't be done but I've never heard one good
reason why," said Hamilton resident Marucio Britto, who said she knows people
who would use a continuous route for bicycle commuting.
Bill Long,
chairman of the city's advisory trail committee, said justifications for leaving
the "gap" are based on "pseudo science."
Project officials said such a
link may ultimately be made, but the possibility that the Las Gallinas property
could also be restored at same point is delaying movement on that segment of the
Bay Trail.
Several speakers called for design features to prevent both
dogs and cats from getting to protected areas, with one saying a leash law is
seldom followed now. To avoid domesticated predators, migratory birds could burn
off accumulated fat needed for long seasonal journeys and perish as a result,
one speaker said.
Hamilton resident Maggie Rufo said the trail should
not come at the expense of the wetlands restoration.
"I believe that the
protection of the wetlands is the number one priority over and above any trails
or public access," she said.
"My concern is that once you give public
access to this sensitive wildland area that you are essentially introducing a
non-native, destructive species such as humans and dogs into the very area that
people will have worked so hard at so much cost to create."
Contact Con Garretson via e-mail
at at
cgarretson@marinij.com
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