If you have been out to the Wavecrest blufftops recently, you may have noticed wooden stakes in the ground with orange paint in multiple locations. These are parcel corner markers set up by a surveying team.

In Fall 2024, Cross Land Surveying, Inc. completed a “boundary survey” of parcel corners throughout the entire project area. This was a huge amount of work, but necessary to help ensure that the planned trail alignment is entirely within CLT’s parcels and the City of Half Moon Bay-owned rights-of-way, or “paper streets,” which the City Council authorized CLT to use for the trail at its November 19, 2024 meeting.

In early December 2024 Sara Polgar (CLT project manager) and the project engineer, Tim Best, walked the entire trail alignment and planned parking areas to make adjustments based on the survey points. Fortunately, they did not have to find all of the orange-topped stakes to do this! Tim had the survey points locations pre-loaded on a mapping app on his phone.

While they were out there, Sara & Tim assessed other factors as well for updating the trail plan.:

Having the trail alignment follow the paths of existing casual trails as much as possible to minimize disturbance to new areas.
Keeping the alignment along the bluff edge as much as possible – where most people prefer to be– while maintaining a sufficient buffer to allow for likely erosion.
Making sure that the updated alignment still avoids and minimizes impacts to the mapped wetlands and other sensitive habitats and species that are protected.

After Tim updated the alignment, Sara and Cleopatra Tuday, a biologist from SWCA Environmental Consultants with expertise in coastal plant communities and wetlands, walked it in early January 2025.

Cleo identified areas with a lot of native plants and high habitat value – such as mature “stand” of Danthonia californica (CA oatgrass) – and made recommendations for additional adjustments to the trail alignment to reduce impacts to these areas. She also recommended best practices for removing and reusing soils and native plants from the new trail construction for restoration in areas of bare ground.

With these latest refinements to the trail alignment sorted out, CLT is finalizing the project plans and preparing to submit them for final permits and getting bids from contractors.