The process to develop a plan for looking after the area commonly referred to as the heart of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands has begun with the organizing of an eight-member advisory committee.

An open house to introduce the public to the Heart Lake area master plan process and to gather input is 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Anacortes Middle School cafeteria.

The Heart Lake area is 436 acres of natural forest land. It was transferred from the state to the city of Anacortes in 2002.

Through a community-based process, the Heart Lake management plan was developed in 2004 and amended to the Anacortes Community Forest Lands comprehensive plan.

The management plan laid out generally how the area was to be managed, while abiding by the State Parks Land Classification System guidelines that came as a condition on the land, said Bob Vaux, a city parks and recreation department temporary employee overseeing the master plan’s development.

Those guidelines prohibited a number of uses or activities including motorized vehicles on the trails, wood debris collecting, snowmobiling, off-trail skiing, mooring buoys, jet skiing, rock climbing, sports fields, paragliding, metal detection, indoor accommodations and mushroom harvesting.

The state designated three land classifications in the park — the Natural Forest Area in the southwest corner, the Resource Recreation Area in the northwest corner and area east of Heart Lake Road, and the Recreation Area that includes the main parking lot, former gravel lot and former overflow parking area on the east side of the road. When developing the management plan, the advisory committee designated the lake as a fourth area for review.

The prior management plan committee also applied additional regulations to each area through the management plan. Trails within the Natural Forest Area are for hikers only — no horses or mountain bikes are allowed. Within the Resource Recreation and Recreation areas, the trails are open to all three users.

Picnicking is allowed in the Resource Recreation Area, though picnic tables and structures are not recommended.

Possible enhancements in the Recreation Area include interpretive information and signage, composting toilets and a rustic type of amphitheater for environmental education.

Permitted recreational uses on the lake include wind surfing, swimming, fishing, sailing, kayaking and canoeing. Prohibited is the use of combustion engines.

And like elsewhere in the Forest Lands the taking of tree, shrubs, bushes, flowers and other vegetation is not allowed in any of the four designated areas.

Without full-time staff at the lake, the committee was opposed to allowing camping in the area. And the word rustic was used a few times to describe the types of facilities the committee wanted to see, Vaux said. People weren’t interested in anything flashy but in enhancements that blend in naturally to the surroundings.

While the management plan provides the big picture, the master plan will provide the details, Vaux said.

The advisory committee working on the master plan today has some of the same members who served on the committee to develop the management plan, including Doug Colglazier, Anacortes Parks Foundation; Geri Rubin, ACFL Trail Committee, and Denise Crowe, Friends of the Forest.

Additional members are Sarah Nichols, Marcia Hunt, Brad Adams, Kirk Kennedy and Anna Melling.

The goal of next week’s open house is two-fold, Vaux said. The first is to make the public aware of the planning process and the second is to make sure the public is participating in the process.

Advisory committee members will be manning seven stations, including education, conservation, trails, special-use recreation, and infrastructure and operations. Forest Lands manager Jonn Lunsford and landscape architect Patrik Dylan of planning firm EccosDesign will be on hand to answer questions.

“We want to orient people and encourage a sincere interaction,” Vaux said.

Vaux said he expects people’s main focus to be on the parking lot, which is the “heart” of the area but isn’t very attractive.

Other issues will be how to improve, support or enhance the recreational activities in the area.

Proposals from development of the prior management plan included relocating the boat launch at a deeper area leaving the shallower area for swimmers and adding picnic tables as well as a clean sand or grassy area next to the lake.

“The management plan did not talk about intense levels of development,” Vaux said. “But to enhance recreation and conservation simultaneously.”

Other issues may be to improve accessibility, the restrooms, and education and interpretive opportunities.

How the trails are to be used and managed is mainly handled in the ACFL comprehensive plan, Vaux said.

Vaux speculated that the Heart Lake area is treated as an appendix in the ACFL plan because of its uniqueness and the specific conditions put on it by the state.

Before the Heart Lake area was a state park it was in the hands of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. When DNR proposed leasing the lakeshore for development ventures in the late 1970s, residents stepped up to protect the lake and the land around it.

“Heart Lake is where the Anacortes Community Forest Lands were in essence brought into existence,” Vaux said.

In 1978, the environmental group Evergreen Island blocked DNR from moving forward with development. And on Valentine’s Day 1980, Gov. Dixy Lee Ray signed a bill making the area a state park under the management of Deception Pass State Park.

But with staff there stretched thin, city of Anacortes employees and volunteers took care of most of the maintenance of the area.

“In essence, we had been caring for those lands for some time,” Vaux said.

So 22 years after it was designated a state park, Gov. Gary Locke transferred it to the city.

The master plan advisory committee will continue to meet throughout the master plan development process to discuss and approve major steps along the way, including the schematic design and the preliminary master plan expected to be ready in January.

Scheduled meeting dates, which the public is encouraged to attend, are Dec. 1 and 15, and Jan. 12. A tentative date to present the draft plan to the public is Jan. 26. Depending on the community’s input, the draft be revised and presented to Parks Director Gary Robinson and eventually to the City Council for final approval into the ACFL comprehensive plan.

“I take a lot of pride in those woods,” said Vaux, who was the ACFL manager from 1992 to 2000. “And I want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

Meeting

Anacortes residents are invited to an open house to discuss the Heart Lake master plan at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Anacortes Middle School cafeteria.

The open house will feature input and review stations facilitated by Heart Lake master plan advisory committee members.

Anacortes Parks and Recreation Department staff and EccosDesign representatives will make a brief presentation and be available to answer questions.