Article

Why isn’t Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument Open Yet?

Local residents have been anticipating the opening of the unique property for five years. What can visitors expect in coming months?

By Naomi Friedland

Oct. 11 2023— Local residents have been anticipating the opening of Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument, the largest onshore piece of the California Coastal National Monument, which was established by Pres. Barack Obama in 2017.

A  5,843 stretch of land that rises from bluffs up into the Santa Cruz Mountains, Cotoni-Coast Dairies (CCD) features rare coastal prairie, ancient oaks and redwood-forested canyons. Since the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acquired the land in 2014, the agency has worked with public, private and community organizations to establish a protected public park for visitors near and far to enjoy.

Two loop trails, including one built for adaptive mountain bikes in the northern section of the property, are set to open to the public this fall or winter. At this moment, people can already visit the property during guided hikes and tours or by volunteering to help build trails.

Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship (formerly Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz) has been contracted to build the trails for CCD with the help of volunteers and an Americorps crew. The first phase, costing $2.7 million, will include hiking, biking, equestrian, and ADA-accessible trails in the most northern and southern regions of the national monument. “The timeline for southern trail development is uncertain, but will follow the opening of the northern trail network,” says Katy Poniatowski of Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship (SCMTS).

“The trail building is a visually stunning process,” says Poniatowski. “The views are second to none, rivaling Big Sur. We have a diverse ecosystem: coastal prairies, redwoods in the canyon, woodlands, all against the backdrop of the ocean.”

After being inhabited by the Cotoni people for thousands of years, in the 1860s, Swiss immigrants acquired the land from Spanish settlers, turning it into a cattle farm and dairy production site. CCD’s trails are built on former logging and farming roads. With the property being used for outdoor recreation for the first time, trail builders have a blank slate to create routes of various difficulties featuring a range of ecosystems and beautiful coastal views.

Designing and building Cotoni-Coast Dairies has taken longer than initially projected. Much of the delays have been credited to the back and forth of the two parking lot designs.

Christy Fischer, a conservation director at the national nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL), traces the precarity of the project to 1998, when TPL gifted what is now Cotoni-Coast Dairies to the Bureau of Land Management. Cotoni-Coast Dairies was part of a larger land parcel purchased by TPL from Coast Dairies & Land Company to prevent private development on some of the California coast’s last remaining areas of coastal prairie. California State Parks took the beach areas west of Highway 1.

BLM only wanted to keep the land east of the highway that was not in active cultivation. Because agricultural lands were dispersed throughout the area, it took TPL 16 years, from 1998 to 2014, to subdivide the land.

Where parking lot trouble comes in

“We invited BLM to draw the lines, but they drew the lines very tightly to the farming land,” Fischer says. All the land that BLM left to TPL received conservation easements, which makes it difficult to alter farmland for other uses.

“BLM lands are for the most part behind agricultural land,” Fischer says. “So getting people from the highway to BLM’s land is pretty constrained.” It has therefore been difficult to find an ideal place for the north and south entrances and parking lots.

The original southern parking lot was proposed to be off Marina Gate which TPL owns. BLM suggested building a twenty foot easement. TPL denied this plan in June 2021, due to environmental concerns and complaints from eight local community organizations including Friends of the North Coast and the Davenport North Coast Association. TPL and BLM came to an agreement to create a southern parking lot that meets regional needs. They also hope to create a lot that compliments the Coastal Rail Trail project, set to be completed by 2026-2027.

The north parking lot is set to be built by spring 2024 and will then move into a process of environmental review. Zachary Ormsby, BLM Central Coast Field Manager, says the National Environmental Policy Act review should be completed by April 2024—as long as there is no litigation.

Community organizations including the Davenport North Coast Association, Friends of the North Coast, and Rural Bonny Doon Association have litigated against BLM’s parking lot plans. The groups have proposed an alternative parking lot that would be right next to the one in BLM’s proposal, but further from Cement Plant Road, in the corral by the historic cheese barn.

Jonathan Wittwer, president of Friends of the North Coast, says he is worried that BLM’s planned north parking lot will not have sufficient parking spaces and cause traffic issues.

Ormsby’s concern is that the corral is prone to flooding. “The Army Corps of Engineers has yet to do a study on whether the area is a wetland,” Ormsby says. “The major thing is that where they proposed the parking lot is being leased by a cattle rancher.” The cattle rancher’s lease is up in 2026 so they would not be able to even consider building a parking lot in the corral until then. “We need a parking lot now, which is why we are going forward with our parking lot,” he says.

In the hopes of mending relationships and reaching consensus, Ormsby met with the three community organizations a few weeks ago. Earlier this summer, Ormsby had lunch with the local community organizations. “We stood in the parking lot to have a meeting, walked the landscape, stood on the property for three and a half hours and talked through things,” Ormsby says. He reports that there has been a shift in the last several months and believes that BLM and local residents will be able to work more cooperatively together.

“We have been supportive of opening the project all along,” Wittwer says. We tried to find ways to work together with BLM, not making any objections to the trail work that is being done. We are all looking forward to getting out on the trails.

Cotoni-Coast Dairies will become Santa Cruz’s crown jewel for years to come

It appears that finally, TPL—which first protected the land from development—BLM, and the community organizations all agree that it has been the right choice to take their time to get Cotoni-Coast Dairies ready for the public. Undeveloped coastal grasslands and coastal prairies are very rare and fragile, Fischer points out.

Most of these ecosystems have been developed into agriculture, homes, or for commercial activities. “We’ve lost almost all of them,” Fischer says. “In the places that still exist, we recognize them as exceptionally valuable in terms of education, recreation, scenic spots, and biodiversity. Everyone is working in good faith to do the best job that we can and recognizes how important it is to take our time.”

Past Hilltromper Articles on Cotoni-Coast Dairies:

Cotoni Coast Dairies becomes a Coastal National Monument in 2017: Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument: A Good Thing

Advocating for California Coastal National Monument expansion in 2016: J. Nichols: National Monument a ‘No Brainer’

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