The county approved a contract Tuesday to landscape the first phase of the controversial Modoc Road multi-use trail.

Supervisors approved construction in May 2022, and the first section was finished last August. The finished path will start near Calle De Los Amigos and connect to the Obern Trail Bike Path across from Encore Drive.

Construction on the next section will begin this summer. 

JAS Landscape LLC will provide landscaping improvements along the newly constructed path. They’ll be adding drought-tolerant and native plants. The contract includes a nine-month plant establishment where JAS will be maintaining landscaping, and after that the county Public Works will take care of it.  

Landscaping will include adding 20 types of mostly native plants and five different groundcovers and grasses. They’ll plant 22 coast live oak trees, 21 Channel Island oak trees, and about 1,300 other plants in the section from Via Senda to city limits, Public Works spokesman Lael Wageneck said.

Landscaping will begin in February, and no trees will be removed during this process. 

The Modoc road trail project has had its fair share of controversy, mostly over tree removal for building the path itself.

The original project proposal called for the removal of 48 trees along Modoc Road and the Modoc Preserve. The Community Association for the Modoc Preserve was formed to protest the tree removal and development in the Modoc preserve. 

The group sued the county Public Works and Board of Supervisors for environmental review which would have allowed 63 trees to be removed and 2,300 tons of asphalt path in the preserve. They settled with the county, and it was agreed that asphalt would not be used and the county later revised the plan so that only 31 trees would be removed.

Warren Thomas, co-founder of CAMP, said the county response was “mostly positive” to the group’s concerns. 

“The fact that we got a huge portion of the path up on Modoc Road without going into the preserve, we felt good about that,” Thomas said. 

What happens to the Modoc Preserve isn’t entirely up to the county, since the land is owned by the La Cumbre Mutual Water Company. In 1999 the water company made a conservation easement to the Land Trust to keep the land undeveloped. 

“It’s a long way from being a done deal,” Warren said. “The water company and the land trust can say no. The county can get to the point where they submit an offer to them, and it’s still within their rights to say no if the project goes outside of the conservation agreement.”

According to Wageneck, the county has spent the last two years working with stakeholder groups on designs for phase two of the project, which is set to begin construction this summer. The county is in the process of requesting an easement for phase two.

According to the county’s website, they received a lot of community feedback concerning tree removal, path materials and features, existing paths and trails and pedestrian improvements, with the intent of implementing feedback in the plans. 

Anyone interested in the project can sign up to receive updates on the project website.