Work at Santa Barbara Douglas Family Preserve Begins

On Tuesday morning, the bluff-hugging coastal trails at the Douglas Family Preserve (DFP) were bustling with wildlife and dog walkers. 

Oh, and a wood chipper.

It may have disturbed the park’s peaceful ambience, but the chipping was part of long-awaited park improvements that started this month.  

Near the Mesa park’s entrance on Medcliff Road, the results are immediately noticeable. 

A once-dense swath of prickly, dry brush is now bare. Dead and downed trees are sliced up in piles of debris, waiting to be used as trail markers and seating areas. 

Some stumps have already been carefully placed near the bluffs edge to act as a makeshift fence, while branches line trails to guide hikers.

“We’re finding ways to use pretty much everything that we generate — that’s the goal,” explained City Parks Planner Monique O’Conner. 

Remaining tree material will be chipped and used as mulch, based on feedback from the second community meeting about the project in September. Eventually, bare areas will be replanted with natives.

This week is only the beginning. Plenty more vegetation-taming, trail-renovating, and habitat-restoring work is planned over the next few months for the DFP, the city’s most heavily trafficked open space.

Invasive species, deadwood, and other lame trees will continue to be cleared and trimmed to reduce fuel loads and make space for emergency vehicles in case of a fire.  

According to Mark von Tillow, wildland specialist with the city’s fire department, the park hasn’t burned in more than 50 years. However, it’s still in a fire hazard zone that brushes elbows with suburbia. Anything that’s cluttering up “defensible space” has got to go. 

In one area near Medcliff, a downed eucalyptus tree was cut and cleared on Tuesday, along with invasive dry radishes and crown daisies. 

This not only makes room for more native shrubs that wildlife love, but also supports fire prevention, O’Conner said. 

“Natives are inherently more fire-resistant than eucalyptus and non-natives; they don’t shed loose, flammable debris,” she said. “It’s a nice little win-win.”

While the city’s vegetation crew cleared out any eucalyptus leftovers, O’Connor talked about the signs that will advise people to stay off undesignated paths, such as a nearby fallen tree left there as habitat.

“This is the game we’re playing with trail decommissioning,” she said. “People don’t love us taking away any kind of little trail here.”

She called it a “social experiment”: They are trying to take a “balanced approach” of enhancing the park’s public uses, while creating chunks where wildlife can be left alone. 

“It is still a preserve, and so we don’t necessarily want human disturbance everywhere,” she said. 

Special status plants and wildlife will be protected throughout the work process, according to the city. Native plant species are marked with pink flags so crews know to avoid them, and biological surveys are ongoing.

Even some funky ornamentals — like a nearly sideways ficus tree with climbable, floppy branches — left over from the park’s nursery days are being protected to preserve its history, O’Connor said. 

Additionally, mature, living eucalyptus trees will not be evicted; only young trees are getting the boot to keep them from spreading. 

Adjustments to planned work may have to be made due to the outcomes of biological surveys and associated recommendations, or changes in site conditions, the city said. 

Work is expected to last through January, and then city crews will move on to the next open space targeted by their broader Wildlife Resiliency Project, using nearly $3 million in grant funding to support wildfire prevention efforts at DFP and 18 other city parks. 

The park will remain open while work is underway, and the public is asked to use caution and leash dogs around crews and equipment.  More information about this project can be found at Douglas Family Preserve Improvements: SantaBarbaraCA.gov/DFP.