Following a critical letter to the editor in the Half Moon Bay Review chastising Peninsula Open Space Trust for its ongoing renovations atop Pillar Point bluff, POST officials have issued an opinion piece of their own, printed in today’s edition (See Page 4A). POST Director of Land Stewardship Paul Ringgold hopes the letter will straighten out some of the “common misconceptions” Coastsiders might have about the project.

Moss Beach resident Mike Gaynes says he’s walked the bluff-top trails two or three times a week for the better part of his eight years on the Coastside. When POST began widening the trails and roto-tilling some of the land, he noticed immediately.

“POST’s intended objective here is preservation of the bluff and easier access to visitors, but they’re basically scorching the earth up there and they haven’t made clear to anyone what the end product will look like,” Gaynes said. “So it’s hard to imagine what it’ll look like.”

Mike Gaynes walks past a closed path near the place where he proposed to his wife on the coast between Moss Beach and Princeton. Gaynes is dismayed by many of the recent changes on the land since it has been acquired by POST, including the widening and plowing of some trails and closure of others so significant to him.

Though put off by the sight of bulldozers and rototillers, Gaynes’ said his main concerns are for the character of the trails, the integrity of the rugged terrain and the preservation of natural habitat. All three, he says, have suffered since POST began renovations in August.

“(The trails) are as flat and wide as freeway lanes,” he said. “The joke among folks up there is that they’re calling it the ‘bluff freeway.’ It looks like they’re laying it out for vehicle access.”

In fact, the sections of trail that will ultimately extend the Coastal Trail are being renovated for emergency vehicle access, Ringgold said. He said that many of the elements of the design stem from “necessary conditions” of county regulations.

“(Vehicle access is) something that we wouldn’t have planned to do but, due to fire safety issues, that was something we had to change,” he said.

Regarding the remainder of the visually unappealing work, POST Director of Communications Nina Nowak said the trails are in a “temp stage” and will look better as the project nears completion.

“I think people don’t understand that this is a normal part of the restoration process,” she said.

Ringgold said POST contractors are accounting for runoff and erosion in their overall design as well as safety for walkers, cyclists and equestrians.

“The use of the property before POST acquired it was completely unregulated,” he said. “People were creating trails wherever they wanted, based on continuous foot traffic. The issue is that most of those roads were built in areas where it’s logical to walk or put a thoroughbred but in other cases they’re through sensitive habitat areas and along the bluff-top edges.

“Our goal is to create formal trails where we have been advised by our geotechnical consultants are the most solid places – the best places on the land – to route pedestrian and other traffic,” he said.

Ringgold said that the trails, once completed, will appear much different than they do now.

As for the wildlife, which Gaynes said was scared off at the first sound of diesel motors, Nowak said POST is working to restore two former ponds on the hilltop that once served as natural habitat for the California red-legged frog and San Francisco garter snake.

“When the rains come the seeds will re-vegetate the bluff top and it’ll be safer and a richer habitat for the wildlife,” she said.

The project is set to be complete by Nov. 1, save for “a little bit of reservoir work,” Nowak said.