Like most folks in Truckee, I enjoy wandering around our outdoors. In many cases we can literally walk out our front doors to access trails into our incredible forests.
I have been fortunate to live by Donner Lake, in Tahoe Donner, and now Glenshire. In each location I had access to incredible unimproved trails for mountain biking, jogging, and hiking. And I am not alone. Many others find this access an essential part of the Truckee living experience.
While on a walk on a nice fall day, right from my Glenshire house, I ran across a private property sign on what looked like a heavily traveled trail. Off in the distance I noticed a lone mountain biker and another person walking a dog on this private property.
I recall similar sights around Donner Lake and other parts of Truckee. If there is a trail, and no fence, people will explore — whether it’s public or private land doesn’t seem to matter.
I have hiked down from Donner Summit along the old highway, which is now only a dirt trail, and run into private property signs. And mountain biked in Coldstream Canyon where I didn’t expect to see such signs, but there they were.
And on that day in Glenshire I noticed the same.
Upon leaving the trail and heading home I noticed another sign contesting the development of the property I just exited. The sign warned of impending increased traffic, loss of deer habitat, and roads over wetlands.
It seems each new Truckee development over the years runs into similar opposition. People living adjacent to these developments access the trails that frequently meander onto private property, sometimes knowingly without concern, yet will then fight to keep the property owner from developing their own land.
This area in Glenshire is zoned and planned for residential living and is proposed for construction by a local developer and to be named Canyon Springs.
Like other prior developments in Truckee, proposed Canyon Springs sits on land riddled with trails — all on private property. These trails start on public land, designated as public land from previous developments, then continue into private property.
To the resident hiker, it appears the property owner “allows” people access by not fencing off their land. In turn, it seems allowing access then becomes people’s right, at least in their minds, to access the trails. Regular use could lead to what’s called prescriptive easement.
A prescriptive easement is access that is earned by regular use — it is not something that is purchased, negotiated, or granted. It is simply a right to use a property, but the user does not gain title to the land.
Property owners are smarter than to let this happen — they post “private property” signs to deter usage. Signs that many people ignore.
At least if you listen to neighbors and even local environmental groups like Mountain Area Preservation, who is fighting to save Canyon Springs from overdevelopment.
MAP believes the amount of development is excessive for the geography and would impact the wetland and wildlife habitat as well as complicate travel, for both wildlife and humans.
The fight over whose land it is, anyway, begins just as it has many times before. If you listen to the Town of Truckee, this area is set aside for residential development in the general plan. If you listen to MAP, the land needs to be protected as open space. If you listen to the developer, he wants to create housing for the high demand as well as make these private trails public property.
The fight never seems to go well and takes a long time. Past the lengthy planning phase with the Town then begins the fight with environmental groups. All of this time and cost can increase the price of these homes contributing to even higher costs than we can sustain. I have never seen one of these fights go well, yet the development happens and the trails become public.
It seems this process could proceed down a better path, but likely never will. After all, the Town of Truckee’s goal is connectivity — connecting the town through roads and trails. The Town is generally opposed to gated roads and building over trails, which pushes developers not to develop over existing and popular pathways.
In the meantime, I’ll likely see people continue hiking and biking on private property until the day, like in all the other developments before, the trails become public. Then I can access these trails from my front door and feel a little better about it.
