An environmental group managing an open space preserve on the Dana Point Headlands — an area ringed by walking trails that is also home to the endangered Pacific pocket mouse — has been told by a city commission that its request to reduce public access will require further environmental study.
The Bluff Top Trail along the ridge of the massive rock outcropping is a popular place for hiking and watching the marine life and seabirds in the ocean below, and provides a route between Strand Beach and Dana Point Harbor.
The trail is open daily from sunrise to sunset, but the Center for Natural Lands Management wants to reduce public access by half, because it is seeing signs of stress among the pocket mouse population.
The headlands are one of three places where the endangered mouse can be found. A population also exists on Camp Pendleton and in the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.
For nearly a year, center officials have been trying to get the city’s Planning Commission to approve their application to reduce the hours. This week, commissioners reviewed the center’s appeal of a decision calling for further environmental studies.
Sarah Mueller, attorney for the environmental group, argues the center’s request has been stalled by bureaucracy and has been handled unfairly. She said the commission moved much quicker in 2022 when the city increased the trail hours.
“While the city continues to delay, the population of the pocket mouse continues to decline,” Mueller said. “There is a clear link between stress and reproduction. People are impacting the pocket mouse on and off the trail, and likely that is leading to higher stress, lower reproduction and thus population decline.”
Mueller said that the delay “stands in stark contrast to the speed the city moved to set its hours within 21 days.”
The Center for Natural Lands Management, with a grant from the Steel Foundation, bought the land in 2005 from the developer of the nearby gated community for $11.9 million to preserve open space on the headlands. The group also received $800,000 from the Department of Defense as mitigation for base impacts on the mouse population.
The center is responsible for the preservation and day-to-day management of the public trail, for which the city has an easement, ensuring its accessibility.
The trail, now open daily from sunrise to sunset, takes visitors past coastal sage brush and other natural vegetation that’s home to the mice — in 2020, center officials said 77 mice were counted.
This week’s discussion is part of an ongoing tug-of-war between the center and the city about how much public access should be allowed. The center aims to reduce use to four days a week and establish hours that prevent people from being present during low-light periods when the mice are more likely to be above ground.
The city says the public should be able to enjoy the grounds and vista seven days a week. In 2022, a court order allowed for the daily use, and last year, the city’s Planning Commission also issued a permit for those hours, which was contested by the center and two members of the California Coastal Commission.
Last October, the center responded with its own permit application, which included more than a hundred pages of documentation arguing for reducing access.
This week, planning commissioners unanimously voted that an environmental impact report needs to be done before the center’s permit could be considered.
Mueller called requiring the study another stall tactic. She also said it could cost the center about $170,000.
“It’s been 314 days since submission,” Mueller said. “It will be well over another year before the city schedules another hearing on our application.”
Commissioner Mary Opel reminded Mueller that part of the reason the trail and the preserve were opened to the public was because of a requirement of the California Coastal Act, which is intended to maximize public use of these areas.
“By doing a supplemental EIR, all can be evaluated if there is an impact by the hours and whether or not there’s been a change in population,” Opel said. “What’s been presented doesn’t have any math to it or reference to decline that shows me there is any reason for any change in mitigation numbers. All it is, is a change in hours, which is tied to the Coastal Act, which does change the requirement of the EIR.”
Eric Nelson, the Planning Commission’s chair, said the bluff-top trail is not just any trail.
“It’s a mitigation that came (when the city allowed) a private developer to come into the Headlands and make some significant changes,” he said. “We removed a road and a well-used public trail. In return for that, we got a public trail that was supposed to be open every day. That was all studied in an EIR. It was a mitigation measure for the project.”
He went on to say that the bluff-top trail is used by not only those who want to visit the headlands preserve, but also by people who are using it as a way to get from one geographic place to another.
“Changing hours on a gate may not have an environmental impact, but the results of closing those gates will,” he said. “We have to consider that we have multiple hotels whose clients use our trails to access the beach. We need to consider the implications of a 50% decrease in use of the trail. It could put more stress on the transportation system and may require a whole host of things.”
“What are other measures,” he asked, “of protecting the pocket mouse and not restricting public access?”
Mueller said the center will appeal the commission’s decision to the City Council, where she is hopeful the council will find it is exempt from more review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
