Louisville commenters seek more protected land, Dutch Creek buffer and Trail 18 reroute

Louisville residents and Louisville Open Space Advocates (LOSA) are asking the city to expand protected-land designations, add a 120-foot Dutch Creek buffer, close and restore some undesignated trails, and remove or reroute a proposed trail near the Goodhue Ditch.

The requests are part of public comments on Louisville’s draft parks and open-space guidebook and long-range plan and Trail System Plan. The Trail System Plan also proposes a process for prioritizing some undesignated trails for closure and revegetation planning.

Conservation requests

The draft parks and open-space plan proposes classifying 6% of Louisville’s open-space system as Preserve, 30% as Protected Lands, 40% as Visitor Lands and 19% as Other Lands. Cathern Smith, writing for Louisville Open Space Advocates, urged the city to use vegetation and wildlife mapping to identify substantially more land for Preserve status. Other comments from the group proposed that Preserve and Protected Lands together make up about half of the system, with roughly a quarter classified as Preserve.

The group also asked the city to place the Dutch Creek riparian corridor and a 120-foot buffer in the Preserve classification. The request focuses on the Coal Creek floodplain near Coal Creek Trail. LOSA asked the city to close and restore undesignated trails near Dutch Creek and Hecla Lake. The Trail System Plan identifies about 11 miles of these “social trails.” Its proposed rubric applies to undesignated trails, not existing formalized trails, which would remain regardless of land classification.

Under the draft social-trail evaluation criteria, trails leading to or within Preserve areas, and trails that interfere with city operations, would be closed and revegetated. Trails identified for possible future development—including alignments in adopted plans or approved by City Council—would remain until they advance to trail design.

Other undesignated trails, including those in Protect, Visitor and Other Open Land classifications, would be scored on safety, wildlife habitat quality, trail saturation, erosion and invasive weeds. Each factor is worth 1 to 3 points. Scores of 5–8 would be low priority and scores of 9–11 medium priority; both categories would be reevaluated annually. Scores of 12–15 would be high priority and advance to closure and revegetation planning, not automatic closure. The rubric says scores should inform, but not dictate, timing; staff would set schedules through ongoing work planning, considering funding, staffing, partnerships and other operational needs.

Trail 18 dispute

LOSA and resident Matt Jones asked the city to remove proposed Trail 18 from the Trail System Plan. The proposal would create an off-street connection between the Campus Drive extension near Red Tail Ridge and the Coal Creek Regional Trail along or near the Goodhue Ditch.

Commenters said the proposed alignment could affect riparian habitat, fragment wildlife corridors, interfere with agricultural operations and create safety problems at Dillon Road. They suggested studying a route along 96th Street that would use existing signalized crossings instead. Those are commenters’ assessments and recommendations, not established impacts or a city decision.

Next steps

The Oct. 14 Open Space Advisory Board minutes scheduled City Council review of the trails and Parks, Recreation and Open Space plans for Nov. 2, with approval anticipated in early December. The minutes do not say whether the scheduled review took place.

The draft plans are intended to guide future work plans, budgets, capital projects and grant applications. Trail removal, rerouting, buffer designation and land-classification changes would require action through plan review and implementation.