Horse Arena, Trails About To Be Erased Up Piuma Road
Written by 991KBU on September 7, 2018
The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to possibly take action against property owners on Piuma Road … next week at its meeting in Fort Bragg.
And that may settle a decades-long fight over a horse arena … corrals and other activity at a mansion halfway up the mountain … east of the Saddle Peak Lodge … at the third switchback on Piuma Road.
Victor Knipe and Susan Knipe are accused of bulldozing major vegetation … building horseback riding arena adjacent to a blue line stream and allegedly within an environmentally sensitive habitat area.
Also … constructing horseback riding trails, fencing, a tack shed, a tractor overhang and a hay storage structure … also within an environmentally sensitive habitat area.
Part of that is on land owned by the M R C A .. according to the complaint.
After years of negotiations … which broke off twice … the Knipe family has reportedly agreed to a settlement.
They have agreed to yank out 75 trees … most of them described as large, fire-prone, invasive pepper trees.
Those will be replaced with 75 new, native trees, such as oaks.
They have agreed to restore the land to natural conditions … and transfer roughly 22 acres of land to the MRCA … worth about 2 million dollars.
All of this is according to a Coastal Commission staff report.
The settlement goes before the Coastal Commission for a vote next Wednesday … in Fort Bragg.
