Our Preferred Alternative for Coastal Access
• Southern Entrance. Yellow Bank South Gate alternative per Conceptual Plan package from RRM dated March 3, 2022 (Attachment A, the culmination of July 1, 2021 Joint Proposal by 7 Organizations (Trust for Public land, Sempervirens Fund, Santa Cruz Puma Project, Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, Big Creek Lumber, Friends of the North Coast and Rural Bonny Doon Association). BLM has stated in writing that it supports this alternative in concept and the details are currently being negotiated by BLM and Trust for Public Land.
• Northern Entrance off Cement Plant Road near Mocettini Barn. Combined Parking Lot for Northern Trailhead and Historic Restored Mocettini Barn per Conceptual Plan package from RRM dated March 18, 2022 (Attachment E), along with signage agreeable to Davenport North Coast Association directing vehicles on Highway 1 to exit at northern end of Cement Plant Road and stating that traffic south of the Combined Parking Lot is for Davenport Residents Only. This Parking Lot could be installed on a temporary basis to allow opening of northern end of Cotoni-Coast Dairies as early as Thanksgiving 2022.
DNCA’s long-proposed Mocettini Barn Alternative Parking Lot Looks More and More Like the Only Logical Way to Open by the end of 2022. BLM’s Field Manager Ben Blom met with DNCA Board Members about 10 days ago to show them what he had planned for the BLM-proposed Parking Lot at the corner of Cement Plant Road and Warrenella Road. A photo of his revised plan is HERE (he did not bring any copies for DNCA or commit to providing them in the future). DNCA has drafted a letter to our current member of the House of Representatives, Anna Eshoo, and due to redistricting, a second letter to likely future Representative Jimmy Panetta, explaining why Blom’s plan heightened DNCA’s concerns and increased fears that development of a parking area at BLM’s preferred site would be a blight on the Monument for a long time to come. Here is a collection of reasons why the only logical way to open C-CD by the end of 2022 as targeted by BLM is to install a Coastal Act-exempt “temporary” Parking Lot at DNCA’s nearby Mocettini Barn Alternative location.
- Under BLM’s latest plan, the landscape would be greatly altered to accommodate parking spaces on the side of a hill, with large cut and filled areas, and steep banks , a large storm water catchment basin, and the flattening of the existing knoll.
- BLM’s plan would reduce the number of parking spaces from 69 to 42, without approval of the Coastal Commission for this reduction.
- BLM’s plan would create an entry road gap, by removing 4 huge old eucalyptus trees in the row along Cement Plant Road which have long served as Monarch habitat.
- BLM has secured $2,500,000 funding to restore the Mocettini Barn, which changes BLM’s original planning assumptions since parking will now be required for this culturally significant site to display interpretive information about Coast Dairies' cultural and natural history of the area for visitors and school groups.
- Field Director Blom indicated parking for the Barn would probably be sited on the very site that BLM has previously opposed and that DNCA has been recommending. This negates all of BLM’s previous unsubstantiated objections to this site.
- The addition of the Barn restoration project makes it imperative that the visitor parking for the trails and for the Barn be well-planned and combined at DNCA’s Alternative location near the Barn where it would be closer to the trail system, require little land alteration, and have greater parking capacity (shown HERE with space for future expansion).
- Since the Coastal Commission allowed the Santa Cruz Warriors Kaiser Permanente Arena to be constructed as a “temporary” project, it could certainly allow a parking lot base to be laid down in DNCA’s Alternative location to allow opening the Northern Entrance to C-CD by the end of 2022. This would seem easier for the Coastal Commission to allow than the reduction of parking from 69 spaces to 42 spaces combined with greatly altered natural landform in violation of Coastal Act section 30251 with large cut and filled areas, steep banks to accommodate parking spaces on the side of a hill, a large storm water catchment basin, and the flattening of the existing knoll. None of that is consistent with the Coastal Act Federal Consistency Concurrence and would require return to the Commission for modification to allow it.
• Baseline collection and Monitoring - Agreement for BLM’s Biological Monitoring Plan (first made available January 12, 2022 by Coastal Commission staff) to be revised to include the below requests made in the February 25, 2022 Comment thereon by FONC/DNCA/RBDA.
• Remove Recreational Hunting from Resource Management Zone 2 given that RMZ 2 is designated as a core fish and wildlife protection areas (hunting for management of nuisance species would still be allowed).
- specific commitment to produce a reliable baseline inventory document;
- replacement of the "Subject to Availability of Funding" language for most of the Wildlife monitoring with a commitment to do surveys and monitoring committed to in the RMPA (including its Decision Record);
- acceptance by BLM of Proposal by Santa Cruz Bird Club to obtain data for Breeding Bird Atlas and Baseline information for Birds;
- removal of the statement that "formal monitoring protocols for each species discussed in the Proclamation is not recommended or proposed."
- under Stream Surveys at page 22, for turbidity measurements replacement of Secchi disks with electronic optical sensors that measure light attenuation or backscatter; also include a threshold regarding turbidity.
- add thresholds (measurable indicators of when a change in management needs to be made) as required by RMPA Appendix C, page 3-4)
• Remove Recreational Hunting from Resource Management Zone 2 given that RMZ 2 is designated as a core fish and wildlife protection areas (hunting for management of nuisance species would still be allowed).