Trail on Sonoma Mountain cleared after 12-year battle

The long and winding legal road towards a public trail along Sonoma Mountain came to an end Wednesday as the county supervisors approved a deal to end a 12-year dispute.
“This closes a chapter that has been open way too long,” said Supervisor Valerie Brown. “It’s a great victory.”
The 240-acre McCrea Ranch is located just to the south of Sonoma Development Center. The settlement secures public access to 22 acres along the ridge and prohibits development on about 200 acres on the mountain slope. In return, the owners are allowed limited development of the 11 acres on the ranch’s lower elevation.
“After such a long struggle, we believe this agreement achieves good benefits for all parties,” said Dee Swanhuyser of the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. “It provides significant public benefits and safeguards regarding new development, and it also secures a critical link in the ridge trail.”
Brown said the new 2.2 mile trail, much of which is along the highest ridgeline on Sonoma Mountain, “will be the finest any of us have ever seen.”
In 1997, the county’s open space district paid owner Tom McCrea for a $1.2 million conservation easement. The gem was to be a trail along the mountaintop, linking trails through Jack London Park to become part of the Ridge Trail. The California Conservation Corps, with help from BARTC and LandPaths volunteers, began building the trail.
The trail was about 90 percent complete in 1991 – its opening just two weeks away – when McCrea announced he had sold the property to the Maria Hansen Trust. Because a signed copy of the trail agreement had never been formally submitted, the new owners had grounds to contest the easement. Work on the trail was halted, and the county sued the new owner.
Over the years, tentative agreements have been untracked by objections from the ranch owners, neighbors and open-space advocates. The Sonoma Mountain Residents Community Association, which had opposed the deal last month, told the board it was now satisfied.
“The end result satisfied the land owners and the neighbors,” said Swanhuyser of the BARTC, which was a plaintiff in the suit against the Hansen trust. “It was well negotiated.”
Two other private landowners have offered easements to extend the trail another half-mile beyond the McCrea boundary, Swanhuyser said, “Opening a precious mile and half segment of the Sonoma Mountain Ridge Trail.”
The plan is for the trail to ultimately be maintained by the state parks, perhaps as an extension of Jack London Park. For now, without state funds, “It will be up to the community to rehabilitate and maintain it,” Swanhuyser said. Between fundraising and a lengthy permit and paperwork process, the trail should be open within one to two years, she said.
Swanhuyser visited the site two week ago and, “It’s in good shape. There’s quite a bit of work to do, but the trail bench looks good.”