Point Reyes Light - February 17, 2005
Ranchers irked; not part of planning for trails on land
By Peter Jamison
When the updated Marin Countywide Plan was published last February, ranchers around Fallon were upset to find several trails on the map running across their properties that simply did not exist.
The plan, which is updated every 10 years by the county’s Community Development Agency, has been hotly contested by landowners who feel that the marked trails constituted a violation of their property rights.
When first published, the plan showed both "existing" and "proposed" public trails running through the parcels. Existing trails designate trails already in place, while proposed trails designate possible paths for trails the county would like to build in the future.
Responding to the outcry, the county planners agreed to change the existing trail designations on the maps, acknowledging it had made an error and that the trails didn’t exist. The amended version of the countywide plan is due to be published this summer.
But the controversy has not died. Instead of completely removing the fictitious trails from the maps, county planners have merely redesignated the offensive existing trails as proposed trails.
Proposals anger ranchers
Landowners said that the fashion in which they learned that the county is considering opening their property to the public is outrageous.
"Even to propose those trails is a kind of taking from us," said Henry Grossi of Marshall, President of the Marin County Farm Bureau. "We’re trying to get them taken off of there."
In a letter to county planners last June, Dennis and Nancy Gates, who ranch in the Fallon area between Tomales and Valley Ford, wrote that changing the designation of the trails from existing to proposed was "not an acceptable solution."
"The designation of new ‘proposed’ trails on and in the vicinity of our ranch as part of the new countywide plan is not factually justified, nor is it realistic, consistent with other county planning policies, fair or legal," they wrote, referring to a proposed section of the California Coastal Trail which would cross their ranch as well as the neighboring Pozzi and Spaletta ranches.
Beef rancher Sally Gale of Chileno Valley said that county officials should not have the right to project trails across private property without first consulting the owners.
"A bunch of urbanites on a committee have come up with a plan that will hugely affect ranchers and the ranchers don’t even know about it," she said.
County planners argued that by simply proposing a public trail, the county does not demonstrate designs on private land and that private property rights are not being threatened.
‘Policy documents, not trailmaps’
"We’re talking about policy documents, not trailmaps," said Linda Locklin of the California Coastal Commission. "These trails are not going to be built in the next year, or in the next five years. But emotions hit first, and it’s easy for people to get confused."
Locklin helped oversee the designation of the California Coastal Trail, portions of which run over private land in West Marin and are designated as proposed trails in the countywide plan. She said that landowners often overestimate the threat of a proposed trail over their property.
"It’s [only] a visionary document," echoed Michele Rodriguez, head of long-range planning for the County of Marin and project manager for the countywide plan. "Proposed doesn’t mean it will actually go that way."
But even a long-range policy can have immediate effects: as the Gateses noted in their letter, proposing trails across a piece of property can lower its resell value.
"The public perception of trails on a property can negatively impact the property value," they wrote, adding that by extension the publication of the countywide plan "could arguably be construed as a taking of our private property rights."
Locklin had no answer to this complaint, but admitted it was "not an uncommon concern."
Furthermore, ranchers are skeptical of claims by the state and county that the proposed trails will not necessarily be built in the near future.
"I don’t buy that argument at all," Gale said. "The state has ways of doing things on private property. They might use eminent domain."
Under eminent domain, the state can dictate that private property be put to a necessary public use; eminent domain is invoked by Caltrans to build roads over privately owned land, for instance. But Locklin said the state would never invoke eminent domain to build a trail, nor could a trail be built across private property by any other means without the owner’s consent.
Maps ‘encourage trespassing’
"The state is not going to dictate to a private landowner where a trail is going to be or how we’re going to do it," she said.
Ranchers also argue that the proposed trails could encourage people to trespass, since hikers looking at the maps might mistake the proposed trails for existing ones.
"Designating trails on private agricultural property, whether existing or proposed, invites trespassing," the Gateses wrote. "The county should not encourage its citizens to break laws."
But Rodriguez doubted hikers would consult the countywide plan when looking for trails.
"These maps are in a policy document four inches thick, interspersed with information on water, resources, and housing," she said. "It’s not something that is for sale at [outdoors outfitter] REI."
Gale disagreed, noting that the maps are available to the public at local libraries, and that "the county is full of people interested in this kind of thing."
It remains doubtful whether some of the proposed trails can be built in the first place. Many of the trails cover land not accessible by public roads, and the proposed sections of the Coastal Trail cover rugged terrain that would make their realization difficult – in some cases absurdly so, according to concerned ranchers.
The proposed section of the Coastal Trail through the Gates Ranch would have to cross both the Americano and San Antonio estuaries. As there are no bridges across the estuaries, the proposed trails run over open water.
"Most of the proposed trails do not make any sense," Grossi said. "They go through places that are not accessible."
Ranchers are currently at work to have proposed trails removed from their property in the countywide plan. In the meantime, there is a consensus among them that they should have been approached before the plan was drafted, let alone published. Even if the plan is only a policy document, Gale said, ranchers have a right to be apprised of a policy that affects their livelihoods.
"The people who live out here should be involved in the process," she said.
Locklin agreed, but stated that the process of consulting private landowners should fall to the county, and, hence, to the local planners. "It’s the county’s job to make sure they have a plan that puts in landowners’ goals," she said.