HomeMy WebLinkAboutExtended Open Space Public Comment, Culhane (2)
Purrington, Teresa
From:Connor Culhane <cpeculhane@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, November
To:E-mail Council Website
Cc:Carscaden, Doug; Hill, Robert
Subject:Public comment regarding: Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use (Cerro
San Luis)
Attachments:Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers public comment - Pilot Program for Winter
Open Space Hours of Use (Cerro San Luis).pdf
Dear Madame Mayor and members of the Council,
I would like to submit, on behalf of the Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers, public comment regarding the Pilot
Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use (Cerro San Luis). I've attached a pdf document of our comments, but have
also included them below my signature, in the body of this email.
Best regards,
Connor Culhane
President of the Board - Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers
Public comment regarding: Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use (Cerro San Luis)
Submitted to the City Council of San Luis Obispo
The Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers have long been friends and supporters of the San Luis Obispo
Open Space program. We have advocated for open space and conservation throughout the county, voicing our
support for City of SLO Open Space, Land Conservancy of SLO County acquisitions, Wild Cherry Canyon
conservation, Atascadero Land Preservation Society’s work in north county, and open space in the Santa
Maria and Orcutt area. We have worked extensively with private, local, state, and federal land managers to
build trails and improve the environmental sustainability of existing trail systems - our volunteers log thousands
of hours each year working on the land. We also support land conservation and open space by partnering with
organizations like the Land Conservancy of SLO County and volunteering with open space and park rangers
throughout the county. In our current troubling times, we are advocating for the protection of national
monuments and are supporting the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.
Locally, CCCMB volunteers have played a crucial role in the construction and maintenance of trails throughout
SLO City Open Space, from Johnson Ranch to the Irish Hills to Cerro San Luis and Stenner Springs. Some of
these trails include King Trail, the M Trail, Mariposa, Filipponi Ranch Connector, Wednesday and Ocean View
trails, Johnson Ranch loops, The Eucs, Elevator, and the Stenner Flow Trail. In recent years, we helped design
and build two hiking-only trails: the Old Prospector trail in Irish Hills and the new Reservoir Canyon hiking-only
trail. We also maintain miles of existing legacy trails throughout the SLO greenbelt, cutting back brush and
poison oak and rebuilding waterbars and drains to minimize erosion.
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I think any land manager in the county would testify to CCCMB’s concern for environmental sustainability when
constructing and maintaining trails. When designing new trails, we work closely with land managers to
minimize run-off and sediment loss, limit vegetation loss, and reduce impact to habitat by careful design to limit
short-cutting and trail growth. Furthermore, we strive to explain to our members the importance of land
conservation and why we are able to ride or hike in the places we love, whether that is in federally protected
national forests, state owned parks like Montana de Oro, or locally managed open space networks and
privately conserved land.
Therefore, it is as close partners of the City of San Luis Obispo, that we have two seemingly contradictory
recommendations. First CCCMB asks that the Council move forward with the staff’s pilot program to expand
winter evening hours of access in the city’s open space area on Cerro San Luis. We believe the limited
extension of hours for this project is reasonable and appropriate for both the Cerro San Luis open space area
and for our outdoor community. Second, CCCMB recommends (provided staff agrees that what we suggest
will be helpful) that the Council direct staff to use this winter and spring to gather more data on existing
conditions.
We are dismayed by the tone and some of the substance of the public comment on this issue. It saddens us to
see that many of the disagreements over this issue have degraded to hyperbole, and people, even neighbors,
that probably agree on 90% of issues related to land conservation, the environment, and the outdoors, end up
positioned
as adversaries. We believe it is not in the interest of the Open Space program to divide the community. We
know the past success of the program in assembling nearly 4000 acres of protected land is based on the wide-
spread support it enjoys from our community. This obviously includes folks on both sides of the issue of
expanding hours of access.
It seems the most common objection to the proposed policy is concern for impacts to animals. There is also a
concern about limited scientific data regarding animal use and existing and historic after-dark human use.
Therefore, we recommend that the Council direct staff to gather more information, which in turn would allow
the Council to make a decision based on the more robust data set well before next fall/winter.
It is our utmost hope that once the City Council eventually makes a decision regarding the pilot project, our
open space and outdoors community can continue to work hard together to protect, maintain, and expand the
San Luis Obispo greenbelt.
Below we have outlined in further detail the reasons we believe it is appropriate to expand hours of access as
described in the staff pilot project plan:
Environmental Impacts
We support the staff’s recommendation that the Council approve a resolution to adopt a mitigated
negative declaration and move forward with the two year pilot project as detailed by city staff. Per the
pilot plan documents, city staff carefully considered the potential impacts of the plan along a variety of
dimensions before recommending the Council approve a resolution to adopt a mitigated negative
declaration.
This is not wanton expansion of access, but a reasonable plan to provide citizens the opportunity that
they very much desire and to carefully monitor Cerro San Luis during this change to determine the long
term impacts of extended hours. This plan will utilize both city staff and biological consultants to
carefully and continuously monitor environmental impacts. Counters will be used to measure human
traffic, game cameras and a bat detector will be deployed to monitor wildlife activity, and open space
rangers will conduct regular evening patrols. In fact, the plan calls for ending the pilot program if
significant direct or indirect impacts to wildlife are observed or human use exceeds expected level or
intensity. The pilot project also calls for utilizing “guzzlers” to provide additional watering resources for
wildlife and the development of educational materials to be disseminated to the public regarding open
space regulations and rules. While we believe the natural environment of Cerro San Luis will not be
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compromised by the proposed pilot change, the pilot program will provide the City with data to
determine whether or not to continue the extended hours policy.
The limited academic literature on this topic does not establish a consensus of the effects on wildlife of
after-dark use of trails. While some impact is assumed, we also know there is significant adaptation on
the part of wildlife, and that after-dark levels of trail usage by human trail users remain significantly
below day-time levels. Furthermore, it’s important to keep in mind that a low level year-round evening
use of City Open space existed prior to increased enforcement efforts in the past several years. While
public participation in trail activities like hiking or cycling has risen, the open space has experienced a
level of after-dark evening use for many years, without compromise of environmental quality. Both
collecting more data on human and animal activities on Cerro San Luis and moving forward with the
project plan will help us gather more information to inform future policy decisions.
Reasonable Evening Access
The verbiage “night hiking” and “night riding” has been used by critics and advocates alike, as well as
by the local press, to describe the activities of hiking, running, or cycling in the evening. This language
is misleading and does a disservice to the discussion. What we are really talking about is “early to mid
evening hiking” or “early to mid evening riding.” We are not talking about people being in open space
“at night”, or when most people are either sleeping or preparing for bed. The pilot project proposes to
allow access until 8:30PM for about 4 months of the year. Altogether, this adds up to approximately 250
extra hours of human access to the open space trails. There are 8,760 hours in a year, making this
increase an approximate 3% increase in the amount of hours humans are allowed in just one small part
of City Open Space.
The Cerro San Luis area of the City of SLO Open Space network is 118 acres in size. The entirety of
the City of SLO Open Space network is nearly 4000 acres. In other words, this area comprises about
3% of the city owned greenbelt. Furthermore, trails exist in only select parts of the Cerro San Luis area.
The acreage of the immediately impacted trail corridor is about 18 acres, which is about .3% of the city
owned greenbelt.
Ultimately, we are talking about expanding hourly access by 3% in area that comprises 3% of City
Open Space, and on trails that have a corridor of .3% of City Open Space. We are not suggesting the
City of SLO recklessly expand public access to open space. We are suggesting the City spend further
time understanding animal and human use patterns on Cerro San Luis and carefully and thoughtfully
move forward with a plan to expand access in a limited fashion and in a limited area,
While this is clearly a small expansion of access, it would make a significant difference to the
recreation, outdoors, and open space community. The area contains several miles of trails that would
allow hikers, runners, and mountain bikers to continue to experience their open space and get exercise
and fresh air during the darker months of the year. This is especially important to those who work and
have families, and thus have limited time to access the outdoors during the limited daylight hours of
winter.
Safety
The issue of both trail user safety and a potential increase in cost of emergency services has been
brought up as a concern. It seems that most users who have required assistance in the Open Space
have been hikers who have twisted an ankle or have become lost or exhausted. Obviously any trail
user can suffer an accident at any given moment. However, CCCMB believes that, generally speaking,
night-time trail users are much more likely to be familiar with a trail and more experienced in using it
than day-time users. We believe that allowing expanded access in select areas is not likely to
substantially increase rescue related costs. Furthermore, there have been at least two
cyclist/pedestrian vs. car fatalities on the roads this year in the SLO area, not to mention many other
non-fatal injuries. Riding or running after work on the roads with cars is certainly more dangerous than
using trails, and accidents involving cyclists on the roads also consume emergency services resources.
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Year-round after work trail access for runners and cyclists may decrease the risk of users being
involved in accidents necessitating emergency services.
Further comments
It is important to note that we support the decision of the City Council to exclude the Bishop Peak
Natural Reserve from any consideration for expanded hours of access. The pilot project proposed by
city staff does not impact Bishop Peak or the neighborhoods around Bishop Peak.
During public discussion related to this topic, several inaccuracies about mountain biking, trail use, and
the role CCCMB plays have been noted in public comment and we would like to briefly address those
below:
o CCCMB operates a bell program. The purpose of this program is to promote cordial interactions
between trail users. We have received significant positive feedback from this program from
other user groups and continue to purchase, through a sponsor program, and at our own
expense, thousands of dollars worth of bells each year.
o An important component of CCCMB’s mission is education. We educate our members about the
importance of riding in control, yielding to other users, and simply being nice. Our program has
grown to include an annual presentation event at Cal Poly where we educate incoming student
mountain bikers about how to share trails and about our local history of land conservation and
trails. Additionally, this year we held our first Sustainable Trail Building School, an effort to
expand local knowledge of sustainable trail building technique.
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