News

HNCLT Holdings and Activities

Saunders' Park

This property will have three projects on it. The City of Trinidad has an easement for a park. The Trinidad Museum Society will have a museum building and native plant garden, and there will also be a library building containing the Trinidad Branch of the Humboldt County Library. Questions were coming up about legal issues having to do with the three groups sharing the same property. The biggest question was how we could have the museum and library with buildings on the same property. The build able area of the property is limited and all in the same location. It is limited because much of the area which is now flat originally had a valley running through it which was filled with earth removed during construction of Highway 101. The HNCLT has agreed to give the City of Trinidad an additional easement for a road to service these projects. The City has been awarded a grant to build the road. Also joining the project is Connie Butler's whale sculpture which was recently immortalized in bronze. It will grace the project until someone comes forward to buy it. We would love to have it be a permanent fixture on the property if a generous donor would come forward and make that possible.

We soon discovered we could not have a ground lease for two different entities owning buildings on the same parcel. A ground lease enables the entity leasing the property to own the building. Another option was subdividing the property, but this is an expensive and lengthy process which would have limited the build able area and would have required two septic systems instead of one. Due to the soils on the property, there is a very limited area for leach fields. We could have done a ground lease with either the museum or the City acting for the library, except that the party with the ground lease would have to own both buildings and one would sublease from the other. Neither party was willing to sublease from the other, nor were they willing to share one building. After much discussion and research we decided that the best option would be for HNCLT to own the buildings and lease them back to the groups. The plan is for the two groups to build the buildings at their own costs, donate them to HNCLT and then have HNCLT lease them back to the groups. The groups will have full responsibility for maintenance and utilities of the buildings.

In early January we started having joint meetings with the four parties involved in attendance. There are two members each from the HNCLT, the Trinidad Museum Society, library building committee, and the City Trinidad appointed to the committee. This group deals with coordination of the projects including joint costs and designs and meets on a monthly basis, or as needed. HNCLT chairs the meetings. We are currently working on trying to integrate the projects so they complement each other and look like one facility instead of three. This has been a challenging year with these projects, but they are moving forward. The Trinidad Museum Society is going first with moving a historic building from next to the Marine Lab to the property and then building the foundation underneath. The next project to break ground will probably be the road. Each of these projects are in the fund raising mode and we are expecting the community will step up to support them.

Moonstone Beach

We own a public access easement on the ocean side of the gravel parking lot at Moonstone Beach. Sam Merryman owns the beach house and the gravel area of the parking lot. Humboldt County owns the paved part of the parking lot. We had some issues with the entire area of the gravel parking lot being reserved for beach house events on several occasions which effectively blocked our public access for parking. We have been in discussion with Sam as well as the people who lease the beach house and the problem seems to have been resolved. In the process we learned that we have lost a significant portion of our easement to erosion. Sam Merryman, as the property owner, is responsible for maintaining the parking lot and we are working with him to arrange for grading of the parking lot before the winter rains this year.

Also, Humboldt County recently approved the final version of the Clam and Moonstone Beach Master Plan. We gave our input on the plan and are pleased with the final version. As part of the plan, the County has agreed that dogs must be on leashes at Moonstone Beach except for the wave slope area (the wet sand). The beach is heavily used and dogs have been problematic there. If you use the beach and are a dog owner, or know people with dogs there, please encourage them to obey this rule and to pick up after their dogs. We especially want to discourage surfers from leaving their dogs unattended on the beach while they go surfing. Dogs off leash on the wave slope must be under the direct control of their owners and that is not possible when one is surfing.

Baker Beach and Houda Point

We inspected the beaches in the spring and made a note to repair the steps at the bottom of the trails. We removed a downed tree from the Houda Point trail. With the changes in the California Conservation Core (CCC) funding and subsequent reduction in work force, we are having trouble scheduling maintenance of these trails which have traditionally been done by CCC. We plan on creating a work party to attend to the trails before the winter storms. Also, at Houda Point we took our old weathered sign down, after much struggling with rusted screws, and replaced it with a backup copy we had which looks better and is easy to read. Also we have reported vandalism to BLM of the interpretative sign they installed there last year.

Baker Ranch Timber Easement

Several items came up at Baker Ranch this year. After a tree fell in the New Year's Eve storm, there was in inquiry into whether it was our tree. We also were notified that not all the owners of property at Timber Ranch knew that HNCLT owed the timber rights to the trees, so we sent a copy of the legal document to the property owners association. Also, a property is being developed there which required several large trees to be cut. We gave our approval for that and if there is any profit after the trees were sold, we will receive it

Replogle Easement - Wagner Street Trail

In mid-2005, the California Coastal Commission, The City of Trinidad and John Frame agreed that Mr. Frame who owns the property would keep a four-foot wide unimpeded path on the easement. In fall 2005, three posts appeared in the easement, causing users to have to weave between them. We requested that Mr. Frame remove them. He refused. He said someone vandalized the landscaping on his property in the easement area and the posts represent where the vegetation was and they will remain there until the vegetation grows back. He threatened legal action if we were to remove them. We decided that we did not want to get into any more legal wrangling with him which is very expensive and felt that our best plan of action was not to take any action unless he blocks the public access so that it is not accessible at all. We also sent a letter to the State Attorney General and the City of Trinidad regarding the posts. Both were unresponsive.

Martin Creek Trail

It has been in the works for some time for HNCLT to accept a public access easement for the Martin Creek Trail. Jeannine Martin the owner of the property is subdividing it and has created an environmentally friendly subdivision. She has put much time, effort and money into the project and really cares about the land. This trail is also referred to locally as Secret Beach and No Hunting Beach and is off of Stage Coach Road. This trail is intended for use as a local neighborhood trail as it is a very small beach and there is nowhere nearby for parking. HNCLT does not plan to make any improvements to the trail and there will be restrictions on its use which will be posted on a sign on the trail. The Coastal Commission required that this public access easement be created as a condition for subdivision of the property. The plan is in the final stages of being approved by the Coastal Commission, and we hope to have the easement conveyed to HNCLT sometime soon.

Strategic Planning

We had second strategic planning meeting this summer to assess what we have accomplished in the past year and what we want to accomplish in the coming year. It was productive meeting. We are using the Land Trust Alliance Standards and Practices a guideline to strengthen our organization. We are members of the Land Trust Alliance, a national umbrella organization for land trusts. One small but significant task we accomplished was to go through the land trust files and create one filing system. We also created strategic plan objectives and reviewed our statement of purpose and goals. Two things we would like to accomplish this year is create a policy for selecting new holdings and to write management plans for each of our holdings.

Strawberry Rock

Strawberry Rock, not one of our holdings, is on Green Diamond property north of Trinidad. We were asked by members of the community to inquire about the possibility of Strawberry Rock being quarried. Green Diamond informed us that there are no plans to quarry Strawberry Rock now or in the future.

Pilot Rock

We inspected Pilot Rock in spring. This is a property we own which does not have public access. It is above Moonstone Beach to the west. A lot of trees fell during the New Year's Eve storm, which have blocked much of the access road.