City of Houston votes to dump motorized trail project approved by DNR for offroading

Having won a clear majority of seats on the Houston, Minn., City Council in last fall's elections, opponents of a proposed motorized trails project on city-owned land have voted to dump the idea after more than 14 years in the making.

A resolution passed late last month by council members outlined an exit strategy rejecting any form of motorized use in favor of public recreation trails with low environmental impact.

But based on early feedback from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and from a major offroad vehicle club, breaking up could be hard to do.

"We don't go where we are not welcomed,'' said Dan Larson, a spokesman for the Minnesota 4-Wheel Drive Association. "The problem is, we were welcomed all those years ago.''

He said all options are on the table, including possible litigation to fight the city's withdrawal from a project infused with $465,000 in grant dollars from the DNR and Federal Highway Administration's Recreational Trails Program. Larson said his group is not alone in questioning how a host city can abandon its commitment to a trail project in the 11th hour, "leaving all investments unfulfilled."

DNR Parks and Trails Director Ann Pierce said her agency is responsible for the money and discussions are needed for the city to find a path forward. Pierce said state money for Houston Trail came from a grant-in-aid program dedicated for off-highway vehicle projects. If the proposed moto-trails are dead, "there's still the need to fund the account," she said.

The City Council already rejected a decision tree presented by the DNR because it sets forth "significant costs" at every turn. The city's resolution about exiting the project says the town should be absolved of any repayment obligations because the project gained footing on critical mistakes made by the DNR.

Pierce said she will call for discussions among the DNR, the city and the Federal Highway Administration. The agenda also will include talks about property deeds that still require the site to be used by motorized, off-highway vehicles. The city wants to negotiate a change to those deeds.

"The decision to discontinue this project is the community's decision," Pierce said. "We want to help clarify where we have a role and where we actually don't have a role.''

The city hopes to involve area legislators in the talks. State Sen. Jeremy Miller of Winona, a leading Senate Republican, said he's already working on it.

"City officials from Houston have asked what their options are, so we are in the process of working with the DNR and the city to figure that out so they can decide the best course forward for everyone involved — especially Houston residents," Miller said.

Originally viewed as an economic-development opportunity, proponents of the trail complex foresaw an offroading playground with statewide appeal. It would be located in scenic bluffs on the edge of town, laced with 7.5 miles of rugged trails and a "rock crawl" area. But the so-called Houston Trail hit a serious roadblock in late 2021 when a federal highway official reported that the DNR did not fully comply with federal environmental review procedures during the land-acquisition process.

The official said no harm was done because the trails never got built, but the lapse set up the possibility of an expensive environmental review for the project to continue. From the very beginning, the DNR's own experts on wildlife, forestry, plant life and water sounded alarms that off-road vehicles and ATVs would cause several serious problems.

After the roadblock went up, local opposition to the project grew. In November, voters ousted the mayor and two City Council members who had supported the project. Their replacements are trying to make good on promises to kill it.

Karla Bloem, a naturalist who previously worked at the DNR, is among community members selected by the City Council to negotiate with the DNR. She said the case is being watched closely from around the state because it's rare, if not unprecedented, for a motorized, off-highway trail project to be defeated by local citizens once it's backed by the DNR.

In the case of Houston Trail, DNR documents gathered by Bloem show how Parks and Trails managers did not heed environmental concerns voiced by the agency's own biologists and ecologists. Yet those reports weren't shared with the city, she said.

In 2010 and again in 2019, field staff wrote multiple reports that described how the proposed trail complex would create heavy erosion, damage rattlesnake habitat, spread invasive plant species and harm increasingly rare bluff prairies within the proposed boundaries.

A report in 2019 from DNR wildlife manager Don Ramsden said the design included too many trails per acre, spelled habitat loss for game and non-game species and required the expense of too much money for a project that goes against "what the DNR stands for" as a responsible resource manager.

In 2010, DNR wildlife biologist Jaime Edwards arrived at a similar conclusion. "It seems counterproductive to be funding a project that will significantly contribute to a problem [erosion] we are spending a lot of time and money to resolve," she wrote.

Bloem, who leads the International Owl Center in Houston, said the DNR gave assurances during the planning stages that the Houston Trail would cost the city nothing. At the same time, she said, the agency put the cart before the horse by accepting federal money for the purchase of land without complying with federal protocols for environmental review prior to purchase.

"You are buying the land before you figure out if it's appropriate," she said. "They missed a step that was utterly critical and might have stopped the project."

For that reason and others, Bloem said, the city shouldn't be on the hook for any repayment.

She said the city will go into negotiations with the DNR believing that new agreements can be made to change property deed restrictions and creatively restore grant-in-aid dollars already spent.