Now that the turn lanes and entryway to the North Kitsap Heritage Park are completed off Miller Bay Road, residents are anxious to find out what the next step is in development and whether they can park in the small paved area and walk into the wild 426 acres.
The property has been used by hikers, mountain and dirt bikers for years who know how to access and traverse miles of rough trails, but someone pulling into the entryway and hoping to take a stroll through the woods could easily get lost in the vastness and run into a bear or two along the way.
Hoping to etch out, mark and map trails so they can be used by the general public without having to wait for the rest of the park’s future amenities like picnic shelters and ball fields to be funded and developed, members of the North Kitsap Trails Association from Kingston and Indianola committees have opened a dialogue with Kitsap County Parks and Recreation Department staff to move forward the next steps in making the Heritage Park accessible. The first and most important step set forth is creating a stewardship group, similar to the successful Hansville Greenway Association, which recently celebrated and dedicated the completion of the Sid Knutson Puget Sound to Hood Canal Trail in the Hansville area.
The Heritage Park stewardship group would ideally clear and maintain trails, help in creating signage and maps, take out garbage and eventually be proponents of wetland protection, according to Carolina Veenstra, a member of the Kingston Parks, Trails and Open Space Sub-committee of the Kingston Citizens Advisory Council.
“We have to be able to have an interim plan until (the park) is developed,” she said. “These issues need to be addressed so people can use the park.”
County Commissioner Steve Bauer said he’s “very interested in seeing this happen. But before we encourage public use (of the trails), we need to make certain we can maintain them.
“We need to sit down and see what we can do with what resources the county has so that it’s a clean and safe place for the public.”
The county parks department isn’t staffed to do that yet, Bauer said, “but if there’s a group that wants to open that up and take care of maintenance like the Hansville Greenway group,” then it can begin to move ahead.
Fruits of labor from a volunteer core
Veenstra and other members of the Kingston group have had preliminary discussions with Dave Haley of the Indianola committee of the NK Trails Association to begin forming a stewardship group and they are looking for many more volunteers to join their efforts.
Haley said the county will benefit from knowledge local trail users can provide about existing trails and old logging roads that already crisscross the property.
“The first thing that has to happen is decide where trails have to go – that’s the first thing for the stewardship to work on,” he said. Haley has been working on gathering GPS track data and proposed routes for connecting trails, and is ready to start flagging and doing some minimal trail clearing to make them at least passable by a single person. Once the stewardship group has mapped out ideal trails, it can go to the county for approval and then get to work, he said.
The parks department’s new stewardship coordinator, Lori Raymaker, will work with the group to put together a plan of action.
“It’s very, very preliminary right now,” she said, and agreed with Haley that a stewardship group has to be in place before the trails. “Once we get a group formed and they have a plan, the county can meet with them and understand what our role is and what the stewardship group’s will be.”
Kate Kuhlman of the Great Peninsula Conservancy said they hope to be a part of the stewardship as well, and helping with trails in the Heritage Park will be a natural connection with Indianola trails GPC already maintains.
Throwing up a sign at the Heritage Park entryway and clearing out a few trails brings up issues both the county and trail groups agree on: once trails are opened, maps and signage including park rules will need to be posted at trailheads, the trails need to be marked and maintained, and motorized traffic such as dirt bikes would need to be restricted from coming into the park from Miller Bay Road and adjoining properties.
As is, with turn lanes, a partially paved entryway and concrete blockade, Walt Elliott of the Kingston trails group said “it’s very confusing to taxpayers” as to whether or not they’re allowed to enter the Heritage Park.
Matt Keough, county parks planning project manager, agreed it’s not ready for public use, but is interested in a stewardship group helping to turn that around.
“Right now, we don’t have an outline of what needs to happen and where,” Keough said. “The county is focusing on acquisition of phase 2 and we look forward to having a stewardship group work with us and having trails more accessible.”
A Heritage Park stewardship group has been tentative and slow in forming, largely because trail advocates like Veenstra, Haley and Elliott are already working on trail networks in Kingston and Indianola, plus following development of a public trail in the White Horse Golf Community, which is finally surveyed and is set to be complete the end of November. The White Horse trail will begin off Kitsap Street, just off Indianola Road and run through the property, ending at the future neighborhood of Arborwood.
Arborwood, a housing development Olympic Property Group has been working on for over a decade, will have its permitting hearing Oct. 9 with the county’s Department of Community Development, according to OPG president Jon Rose.
The big, green picture
Another piece of the big, green picture is the acquisition of the second half of the park from OPG. The current 426 acres of the heritage park were purchased from them in May 2004 for $1.87 million. The county’s option to buy the adjacent 360 acres, made up largely of the Grover’s Creek watershed and wetlands adjacent to Arborwood, expired in July. But Keough and Rose both said they intend to renew the option in the near future. In the meantime, Keough said the parks department recently applied for $1 million grant from the State of Washington Recreation and Conservation Office to help purchase the option, which will have a price tag of close to $2 million.
“We’re as excited about getting the heritage park completed as we were in 2004,” Rose said. “Nothing has changed as far as we’re concerned.”
The option property will be an important trail link between the active-use portion of the heritage park, Indianola and Arborwood. To help buy the ‘thread’ to ‘string the pearls,’ the NK Trails Association applied for a grant from the National Park Service to create a master plan for the whole “string-of-pearls” trails network, Rose said. A master plan would spell out property and easement acquisitions still needed in addition to those already donated by OPG, how the trails would be maintained, and create a budget for staff and other expenses.
The entryway into the heritage park is just one part of the first of five phases of the master plan, including the option property, created in 2006 and approved by county commissioners in February 2007. The second half of the first phase includes signage, an information kiosk and lighted parking area in addition to forging trails and finally putting in some long-sought after playing fields.
In total, the North Kitsap Heritage Park will span 830 acres, nearly the size of New York City’s Central Park.
For more information on the North Kitsap Heritage Park, go to www.kitsapgov.com/parks/.
SIDEBAR
North Kitsap Heritage Park stewards needed
A new North Kitsap Heritage Park stewardship group is forming and many volunteers are needed to help in planning, creating and maintaining pedestrian, bicycle and equestrian trails.
Contact Carolina Veenstra at (360) 297-2059 for more information and to get involved.
