City leaders review Angels Creek plans

The Angels Camp City Council will host a workshop Tuesday to discuss the master plan for a 5.1-mile long Angels Creek Trail.

The bicycle and pedestrian path, broadly envisioned in the city’s general plan land use document that projects out through 2020, would run roughly from the Highway 4 overpass on Murphys Grade Road south to New Melones Reservoir.

The trail is expected to be built in three phases with a total cost of $4,391,000 and aid the city’s branding effort to become the base camp for mountain sports in the Sierra Nevada. It would become the most direct route from the city’s downtown to hiking, biking, fishing, bird watching, boating and swimming at the reservoir, according to city planning documents. It would also add the first separate right-of-way for exclusive bicycle and pedestrian use in the city.

The trail is projected to be funded through a mixture of federal and state transportation sources as well as fees charged to developers locally.

The latest version of the master plan comes to the council for review after a controversial section of the trail that would have cut through pasture land at the Rolleri Ranch was re-routed. The Rolleri family long opposed the inclusion of that section in the preferred trail route and the Planning Commission agreed to the realignment in its March 29 meeting.

City Planning Director David Hanham will present the proposed trail master plan to the council and take questions on the process to this point and upcoming steps during the workshop.