Fort Bragg residents expected a safer, more accessible sidewalk along a busy stretch of town.
Instead, many say they were confronted with a tall wooden fence that has transformed part of scenic Highway 1 from a coastal viewpoint into what feels like a wall blocking the Pacific.
The nearly $10 million sidewalk improvement project has triggered a wave of frustration in the Mendocino County city, leading Caltrans to acknowledge the backlash and prepare revisions to the disputed barrier.
“CalTrans has done a bad thing and it needs to be undone,” Fort Bragg resident Bonnie Brayton said in an email to SFGATE.
The $9.5 million project was designed to upgrade pedestrian access and bring the sidewalk into compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
Construction covers a broad corridor through Fort Bragg, running from the Route 20 intersection to Elm Street.
But for residents, the sidewalk itself is not the source of the uproar.
The fight is over the fence.
The old wooden barrier was low, worn and unobtrusive.
It preserved views of Noyo Headlands Park and the ocean beyond it.
The replacement fence is much taller, blocking those views and leaving locals furious about what they say is a needless change to the town’s coastal character.
Mary Rose Kaczorowski, a candidate for city council, said the fence has become a blow to Fort Bragg’s identity.
“Did anyone stop to ask how this substantially higher fence would affect the people who live here or how it would change the view at the entrance to our town?” Kaczorowski wrote in a letter to the editor of the Ukaih Daily Journal, cited by SFGate.
The complaints have reached local businesses, too.
Aiden McFadden, who works at the Seabird Lodge, said that guests have already started complaining about the obstruction.
“We’re marketing towards being a sea town, but you can’t see the sea. It’s a bit of a buzzkill,” McFadden told SFGATE by phone.
Mendocino Railway owns the property where the fence was installed.
The company operates the historic Skunk Train, which terminates nearby.
Robert Jason Pinoli, the company’s president and CEO, said Mendocino Railway was unaware of the fence height before it was installed.
The backlash quickly brought city officials and Caltrans to the table.
Caltrans spokesperson Manny Machado told SFGATE that the agency and the city began working together to address concerns about the new fence.
Then officials uncovered a critical detail.
City Manager Isaac Whippy said staff reviewed the project permit and found that the replacement fence was supposed to match the previous one.
Now, the giant barrier is getting a second look.
Whippy said that the city has met with Mendocino Railway and Caltrans to plan modifications, with construction crews expected back in town within the next couple of weeks.
“We have a timeline for the construction crew to come back to town in the next couple of weeks for fence modifications,” Whippy told SFGATE.
