Salinas >> The public has an opportunity to take, in essence, a 73-acre blank canvas and help design a “multi-benefit central park that reflects the heart and soul of Salinas” at an upcoming event.
The Big Sur Land Trust will hold a community meeting to help design a park at Carr Lake in Salinas on Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sherwood Hall, 940 N. Main Street in Salinas. The presentations will be in English and Spanish with food and childcare available at 5:30 p.m.
In January 2017, Big Sur Land Trust announced the acquisition of 73 acres of the 480-acre seasonally dry Carr Lake Basin in the heart of the city.
The Big Sur Land Trust, the city of Salinas, community partners and residents will establish a long-term plan that will include the outcomes of scientific and engineering studies for floodplain and habitat improvements, so the public can safely use the land.
Building Healthy Communities, the Monterey County Department of Health, the Watershed Institute at CSU Monterey Bay, and Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association, make up the core community partners group.
The core group has been guiding the Land Trust in its efforts to reach out additional Salinas-based organizations and residents to design the community engagement process which will ensure the voices of city residents are central in determining a vision and establishing priorities for long-term development of parkland on the property.
The goal of the Big Sur Land Trust and its partners is to transform the property into an asset for the community that will help address the lack of parks and open space within the city.
In addition to addressing community needs for open space and parklands, the Land Trust’s Carr Lake project will seek to provide multiple environmental benefits including ecological restoration, water quality improvement and flood control. Big Sur Land Trust does not intend to be the long-term property owner and will work with the city and community to create a mechanism for eventual public ownership, according the Land Trust’s website.
The 480-acre Carr Lake Basin historically fluctuated between being a shallow lake or swampy wetlands before it was drained in the early 1900s and dedicated to farming by Jesse D. Carr, a Salinas Valley pioneer, businessman and landowner.
Before Carr Lake became farmland, it was the largest of seven lakes that captured water from an upper watershed beginning at Fremont Peak. Three major creeks, Gabilan, Natividad, and Alisal creeks flow through Carr Lake.
The basin is now an important component of a regional flood control system which empties into a reclamation ditch and channels the water to Tembladero Slough on its way to the Monterey Bay.
Ikeda Farms Partnership sold the 73-acre parcel for $3.95 million to the Big Sur Land Trust with funding provided by California State Coastal Conservancy, the California Natural Resources Agency River Parkways Program, David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Monterey Peninsula Foundation and the Barnet Segal Charitable Trust.
Transforming the Ikeda property into part of a well-designed park project that will include a restoration strategy featuring wetlands and a more natural system for flood management is part of the Land Trust goal, along with providing managed access with viewing platforms, a restoration demonstration site, walking paths to provide observation of the cultivation of native plants, and the opportunity to use the site as a field lab for students.
James Herrera can be reached at 831-726-4344.