365betÌåÓýÔÚÏßÊÀ½ç±­

The Flagstaff City Council expressed unanimous support on Tuesday, May 13, for the latest revision of a trails management plan for Observatory Mesa.

The plan calls for a combination of trail construction, adoption and decommissioning to create a more accessible, sustainable and navigable network.

Approval of the plan still requires a formal vote, scheduled for June 3. But by the conclusion of the two-hour discussion, every individual council member had stated they were in favor of the plan, making the vote a likely formality.

After three-plus years of public engagement and revisions to the plan, one word dominated the afternoon’s conversation: compromise. Though nobody claimed the plan was perfect, almost everyone present agreed it was the best possible compromise between conflicting desires for the future of the land.

“The tension between land conservation and recreational access never went away throughout this entire process,� Mark Loseth told the council.

Loseth, a facilitator with the consulting firm Southwest Decision Resources, assisted with the extensive public engagement process throughout the plan’s development.

Two divergent views of the area emerged from the thousands of comments submitted on various iterations of the plan, according to Loseth. On one hand, some residents see Observatory Mesa as a “quiet refuge� for wildlife and solitude. On the other hand, many current users of the mesa see it as “a high-quality place for outdoor recreation in Flagstaff’s backyard,� including activities such as trail running and mountain biking.

Reconciling those different perspectives was not easy, said Robert Wallace, the open space supervisor for the city. But he told the council, “We are confident that we’ve developed a plan that is really well-grounded and found a middle ground in the community.�

The presented to the council on Tuesday would create approximately 20 miles of new, naturally surfaced single-track trail, including about 8 miles of 40-inch-wide trail suitable for adaptive cycling (using three- or four-wheeled cycles). Total authorized trail mileage on Observatory Mesa would grow from just over 5 miles to 27, with shorter loop trails clustered around official access points or trailheads and longer trails reaching farther into the forest.

The plan also recommends the creation of a new trailhead on city-owned property near the Public Works yard on Route 66 west of town, and the conversion of an informal parking area on Forest Road 515 on the western side of the mesa into a designated trailhead suitable for equestrian use.

Along with the new construction, the plan calls for the decommissioning and naturalization of roughly 4 miles of unsanctioned, user-created trails, and 10 miles of old, abandoned roadbeds. Not all unauthorized trails on the mesa are slated for destruction: just under 2 miles of user-created single-track should be adopted into the new system of loops.

The naturalization process, according to Wallace, would entail loosening compacted soil, sowing native seeds, adding mulch and posting signs to clearly indicate what areas are being restored. Those techniques have been working well for similar efforts at the city’s Picture Canyon Natural & Cultural Preserve, he noted.

Observatory Mesa is a checkerboard of city-owned land -- formerly state trust lands acquired by the city in 2013 with funding from a 2004 bond initiative -- Coconino National Forest land and one parcel owned by Lowell Observatory. The proposed new trail network would skirt the boundaries of Lowell’s private property for now, though possible adoption and connection of social trails on that section are noted in the plan as a long-term option.

The U.S. Forest Service has indicated it will approve a special use permit and intergovernmental agreement to allow the city to maintain and oversee trails on its sections of the mesa, simplifying the jurisdictional divisions.

The implementation of the plan -- which may not begin until 2028 -- would be phased, beginning with construction of new trails and access points, followed by the decommissioning of unauthorized trails and old roads. By providing new trails before shutting down old ones, the city hopes to avoid any additional rogue trail creation.

During the public comment period, almost every speaker urged the council to adopt the plan, even as they expressed their personal dissatisfaction with specific elements of it.

“This plan’s been extremely heavily litigated -- lowercase L,� Flagstaff Biking Organization board member Anthony Quintile said. Though he said there were “a lot of lost opportunities� in the final version, he also expressed support for it as the best achievable balance of recreation and preservation.

“It has been proven repeatedly that well-managed trail systems are one of the best ways to protect landscapes,� Quintile said. “Compromises have already been made by both sides as much as is reasonable. Don’t mess with it. The messing has happened quite a bit.�

Although mountain bikers advocated for the inclusion of directional, use-specific trails to help separate user groups -- like the mountain-bike specific and pedestrian-specific trails built in the Mount Elden-Dry Lakes area over the past two years -- the latest draft of the plan makes no such provisions. All trails in the system would be designated bi-directional and multi-use, open to hikers, bikers, runners and equestrians.

E-bikes -- pedal-assist electric bicycles -- will only be allowed on the remaining roads that were open to motorized use prior to the city's acquisition of the land.

Although that decision was contentious, drawing both praise and criticism at Tuesday's meeting, it reflects the policies of and the e: both agencies officially classify e-bikes as motorized vehicles.

Changes made from prior versions of the plan include doubling the distance between new trail construction and springs, seeps, or archaeological sites -- an archaeological survey found one location with a “moderate density of prehistoric flaked stone,� and a number of locations containing “refuse scatter� from the early 1900s -- and a 24% reduction in overall new trail mileage.

Embraced by most

Of the 12 public commenters at the meeting, including three members of the city’s Open Space Commission, only one spoke in opposition to the plan. That was Michele James, executive director of Friends of Flagstaff’s Future, who said she believed the plan would not meet the requirements of the conservation easement on the city-owned land.

That was a condition of a $6,000,000 grant from Arizona State Parks & Trails enabling the city’s purchase of the property.

It requires the city “to preserve and protect the conservation values� of the land. Wallace and Loseth had previously stated that the State Parks department has no objections to the city’s plans.

The easement allows for 20 acres -- out of the total 2,521 owned by the city -- to be altered or developed. If the new plan is fully implemented, according to Wallace said just 7.8 acres in total would fit that categorization, well below the limit.

(Later in the meeting, Councilwoman Lori Matthews said, “I’m going to trust that Robert and everybody that has worked on this is not fibbin�. I’m trusting that this falls well within our abilities to utilize that land.�)

James also objected to the phased implementation schedule, arguing that the total trail mileage on the mesa between the completion of the new network and naturalization of the old would be excessive.

'A spaghetti junction'

Other commenters emphasized the active use already occurring on the mesa, and the value of managing, rather than trying to prevent, recreational activity.

“The need and want for trails up there is pretty obvious,� Michael Murphy, general manager of local bike shop Flagstaff Bicycle Revolution, told the council. “If we ignore that, we’re only going to see more unauthorized use, more unauthorized trail construction and probably more user conflict. To me, this isn’t a ‘build it and they will come� scenario. We’re already here, and we’re already using it a lot.�

Murphy described the existing network of largely unauthorized and unsigned trails as “a spaghetti junction,� a metaphor used by multiple speakers. “It is unorganized. It is mostly unsustainable,� he said. “I think this plan has focused pretty well on addressing all of those.�

And Truman Shoaff, programs director for High Country Adaptive Sports, praised the provisions made in the plan for trails suitable for adaptive cycling.

“These trails do not take anything away from the experience, they just allow more people to use them,� Shoaff said. “I’m really happy with this proposal and the work they’ve done to be inclusive.�

In her remarks following the public comment period, Councilwoman Khara House cited one commenter’s description of the proposal as “a balanced plan with tensions.�

“I think that was a really important statement for me,� House said, “because that, to me, is the very definition of democracy and community. It’s the work of finding that balance, finding those places of compromise, while also acknowledging the tensions that exist there.�

One additional element of compromise, first brought up by Open Space Commission member Mary Norton during her comment, was what to call the plan. Norton encouraged the council not to “market� the new plan as a “trail plan� out of concern that extensive publicity would lead to “over-tourism.�

The council members agreed: Anthony Garcia, for instance, said, “Personally, I don’t want to see this marketed as anything more than a natural preserve with trails.�

And Wallace confirmed that there is no plan to extensively market or promote the future trail system to out-of-town visitors.

“Our plan is for this trail area to be for the residents of Flagstaff,� he said.