As Laguna Grande Park’s future is considered, encampments crop up.

At the entry points to the Laguna Grande Park forest, recently erected signs read: “Habitat Protection Area – Do Not Enter.” Inside the forest on a short Sept. 1 hike, the “protection area” is littered with piles of trash, some of it partially burned.

One tent is spotted in a 5-minute loop, as is a makeshift settlement sheltered by multiple tarps and cardboard walls. At least three bikes are propped up outside, and the perimeter is lined with miscellaneous items in garbage bags, storage containers and 5-gallon buckets.

An attempt to get closer is stymied by a barking dog, suddenly awakened by the noise.

The future of Laguna Grande Park is very much up in the air, as the joint-powers authority that manages the park considers two competing visions. But the three entities in the JPA – Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District and the cities of Seaside and Monterey, each of which owns land in the park – agree the status quo over much of the last year is not an acceptable path going forward.

In the last 13 months, three dead bodies have been discovered in the park. Homeless encampments have stubbornly hung on, despite a sweep by Seaside officials last summer that cleared the forest of truckloads of trash. A transient set two other homeless people on fire in March, an act that sent them to the hospital with burns and brought an attempted murder charge for the suspect.

Monterey Audubon Society Vice President Chris Hartzell approached the JPA entities last year about building a trail network through the forest, with the hope the hiker and birder traffic could keep encampments at bay.

Seaside, which manages the forest portion of the park, is resistant to the proposal for two reasons. The first, says City Manager John Dunn, is that the Laguna Grande Master Plan – which dates back to the 1970s – states the riparian forest is to be left in its natural state. Secondly, maintaining Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant access to the forest would be difficult and costly. A bridge must be built over the park’s creek, which can flood during storms.

Since the city installed the habitat signs a few months ago, Dunn says, officials have made sweeps through the park two to three times per week.

“It’s free of homeless encampments now,” he says. “Unlike in the old days when they were allowed to stay for periods of time, we’re on top of the situation.”

Monterey Assistant City Manager Hans Uslar says residents concerned about park issues continue to approach city staff. Monterey is open to developing a new master plan for the park, costly as that may be. “Plans can change,” he says. “Plans have to change.”

Uslar says a meeting between the three groups to continue discussing the park’s future is planned for the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, nearby residents remain on edge: Monterey Police received a report of a man walking with a gun on Sequoia Avenue in the direction of the forest on the evening of Aug. 31. Multiple officers, guns drawn, swept through the neighborhood and forest but did not find the suspect.

Hartzell is hosting a free informational session about the park at Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History on Sept. 8 at 7pm.