Douglas City, Hayfork community plans revised in Trinity 2050 review; board asks staff to prioritize infrastructure, multimodal access and targeted outreach

Trinity County planning staff and consultants presented draft updates for two community plans — Douglas City and Hayfork — as part of the Trinity 2050 general-plan review. The planning commission and board discussed multiple public requests and asked staff to return with policy text and implementation approaches that would be feasible in the zoning-code update and consistent with countywide goals.

Douglas City: infrastructure limits and local requests Douglas City participants raised recurring concerns about infrastructure capacity — notably water and wastewater — which limits feasible housing and tourism development. Staff recommended these points be captured as policy guidance rather than rigid implementation actions, and cautioned that some suggestions (for example, replacing septic requirements with permanent porta-potty solutions) would interact with State on‑site wastewater policy (OWTS) and state regulations and are not simple fixes.

Key items from Douglas City and staff recommendations - Wastewater alternatives: Public commenters asked the county to allow portable or alternative wastewater systems as a way to host commercial activities near the river. County environmental-health staff noted that on‑going domestic wastewater cannot be treated as a simple porta‑potty solution and that OWTS policy and solid-waste rules constrain options; staff recommended language that recognizes alternative wastewater approaches as a discussion point but not a countywide relaxation of existing OWTS requirements. - Housing: residents were split about new housing given infrastructure constraints. Staff recommended relying on the countywide housing element rather than adding separate housing programs to the community plan. - Community amenities: the plan already contains policy support for a public park; staff recommended adding flexible language to encourage hospitality uses (e.g., a restaurant) but emphasized that construction and maintenance costs would fall to developers and project proposers unless the county adopts a separate capital project program. - Senior services: rather than pocket senior centers, Douglas City residents and commissioners asked for improved mobile senior services and transportation options. Staff recommended folding this concern into the countywide “aging and mobility” policies rather than a Douglas-only project.

Hayfork: sidewalks, tourism and agritourism Hayfork participants asked for clearer support for active transportation, improved pedestrian infrastructure along Highway 3, and policies that would help diversify the local economy, including agritourism, sustainable specialty agriculture and tourism uses tied to local assets (river access, public lands, cultural events). Staff recommended modest text edits and asked the board whether agritourism belongs in community-scale zoning code changes or as a countywide economic-development policy. The staff and several commissioners favored treating agritourism countywide but tailoring implementation through zoning overlays and parcel-size/performance standards.

Points of emphasis for Hayfork - Sidewalks and active transportation: residents pushed for sidewalks on Highway 3 and safer pedestrian access; staff recommended tying a policy to the county active-transportation plan and noted that capital construction will require funding (grants or county capital allocation) and that policy alone does not obligate the county to build. - Economic base: Hayfork asked the plan to broaden the economic-development language to explicitly include cannabis industry stakeholders, recreation/ecotourism providers, nonprofit partners (for example, the Watershed Research & Training Center) and cultural-tourism partners. Planning staff recommended edits that expand the program language but cautioned that detailed development standards must be set in the zoning update. - Agritourism: the meeting record contains multiple requests to make agritourism an allowable use in rural-residential areas subject to performance standards. Staff noted that this is principally a zoning-code question (parcel-size limits, parking, wastewater, traffic) and suggested countywide treatment with community-plan overlays where local appetite differs.

What the board directed/staff next steps The board and commission generally supported staff’s recommended edits to the Douglas City and Hayfork drafts and asked staff to: (1) fold senior-service and mobility items into countywide policy language; (2) coordinate active-transportation and sidewalk planning with grant-seeking and capital planning; and (3) treat agritourism and the cannabis-economy language as items to be implemented through the upcoming zoning-code update and the planned community-overlays. Staff will prepare updated community-plan drafts for the revised public-review draft and will include these issues in the next round of community outreach.

Ending Staff will return the revised community-plan drafts and a schedule for the zoning-code work and targeted outreach so the Planning Commission and Board can review the draft before the EIR and final adoption phases.