Badger Park and River Access Update

The following updated information was provided by Mark Themig, Community Services Director, City of Healdsburg regarding Badger Park and river access.

  • The trails in the Rivers Community that were shown on the drawing that you may have received were intended to show access from your neighborhood. They were not intended to show public access. We have removed these trails from the drawings.
  • Since the City does not own, have legitimate access to, or is in negotiations to acquire rights to the property owned by Syar Industries, we have removed this area from our detailed planning focus and concentrated our efforts on the property that the City owns, Badger Park.  
  • The use that occurs on the Syar Industries property by the community/public is trespassing. Since it is private property the City has no role in managing the uses that occur on the property. At some point in the future Syar industries could choose to protect their private property rights and restrict access to their property. With this in mind, we do have a placeholder in the planning process noting that at some point in the future there may be an interest to work with Syar Industries to acquire public access to their property. This is not a current effort.
  • We have re-labeled the Syar Industries property on the drawings “Syar Gravel Bar Reach” instead of the “Public Beach Reach” to reflect the private property ownership status.

You can view updated information and drawings on all three of the planning processes (Badger Park, the new Montage Development Park, and Russian River Access) on the park master planning web page www.cityofhealdsburg.org/parkplanning. You’ll also find information on the community engagement activities this week and a link to a survey.