'It's Open, Use It'

Parks, Recreation and Equestrian commissioners are smiling about a proposal to give residents access to more public lands in town.

If granted approval by the City Council, the Open Space Foundation will turn about 10 acres at 2C Ranch and the Northwest Open Space into places where people can enjoy sitting under a shady tree, rest their horses, have a picnic or walk their dogs. They are simple, relativity inexpensive interim improvements intended to stay in place until grander plans are developed and eventually carried out, the foundation said. 

Ideas about what to do with the spaces "have been brought up year after year with pie-in-the-sky plans for [projects such as] an amphitheater. Let's just get it going," Commissioner Jill Hanna said during a regularly scheduled meeting Monday evening.

The improvements include constructing a water trough for horses, hitching post, three picnic benches and a commemorative monument at 2C Ranch, a 5-acre site across from Trabuco Creek at Oso Road.

They also include opening a portion of a 68-acre plot in the northwest portion of the town, known as Northwest Open Space, by using senior police volunteers to open and close at dawn and dusk a gate that's currently keeping visitors off the land. A parking area for 30 cars is also proposed for the site.

"I cannot walk my dog out there or take my horse out there, because it's locked up. If we want the public's support in the future, we better start letting people use it," foundation member Tom Ostensen told the commission.

The properties were purchased by the city with a series of bonds approved by voters between 1990 and 2008. The Open Space Foundation, a nonprofit group whose goal is to increase awareness about the existence of such spaces and to encourage participation in maintaining and improving the lands, is pushing the city to do something with the land.

 "We're doing what we should've done years ago for the public. We're telling them: 'It's open, use it,'" said Ostensen.