New 388-acre nature preserve with guided trail in development near Nipomo
NIPOMO, Calif. (KEYT) - A new nature preserve planned near Nipomo will be the topic of discussion during a community meeting scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 10 2026.
Set to take place at the Dana Adobe Cultural Center, the forum will focus on the Dana-Carrillo Nature Preserve that is currently being developed.
Once open, the Dana-Carrillo Nature Preserve will provide public access to 388 acres of pristine, untouched oak woodlands in the hillsides just east of Nipomo.
"The new park, the nature preserve, will show exactly what this was like when the first Europeans came to California," said Jim Corridan, Dana Adobe Board President. "The land is almost exactly as it was then. There's huge oak trees and manzanita. The backside is very different from the front. The back side is really a coastal oaks forest in places. There are most of the animals that were in this area at the beginning and still roam that property back there, so you're going to go back in time, which is kind of what the Dana Adobe is all about. You'll go back in time on the environmental side and see what the settlers first saw when they came to this region."
The property is being given to the Dana Adobe and Cultural Center by local developer Nick Tompkins, as oak tree mitigation plan to help offset the environmental impact that will be created by the Dana Reserve project.
In addition to the Dana Adobe, which will own and manage the land, The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County will also help care for the property.
"The Dana-Carrillo Nature Preserve will be owned and managed by the Dana Adobe and the Land Conservancy will hold a conservation easement on the property that will permanently protect it from future development and maintain, especially the oak woodlands on the property and in general, the natural landscape and open space there," said Ryan Walsh, The Land Conservancy of SLO County Conservation Director. "Our role is maintaining basically how the property looks and feels today, maintaining the habitat, not directly managing it on a day to day basis like the Dana Adobe will be, and making sure that that place stays much the same in the future."
Dana Adobe is planning to create an accessible trail that will provide visitors with spectacular panoramic views of South San Luis Obispo County and Northern Santa Barbara County.
Unlike the nearby Pismo Preserve, which is owned by The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County and offers open access to the public, the Dana-Carrillo Nature Preserve will be more restrictive.
"The primary goal is to protect the place for its natural beauty, the oak woodlands, the creatures that call it home," said Walsh. "Public access will be limited compared to Pismo Preserve, in part because it's a special property, and we want to protect the open space and the natural landscape there."
Once open, visitors will not be able to travel to the property by themselves, but instead will need to access the preserve through a schedule guided tour.
"There will be controlled access so that the public can contact us and we'll establish a schedule of hiking trails and times to go hiking up there, potentially equestrian trails and maybe even like a side by side ride up to the top," said Corridan. "There's just over a 1,000 foot incline, and when you get up there, you have spectacular views."
Ownership of the property to Dana Adobe is expected to be finalized within the next 30-to-45 days and the first public visitors to the property could be welcomed to the preserve as earlier as late this year.
Thursday's community meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 10 starting at 5:30 p.m.
"We're going to ask for input from the public and we'll kind of lay out our vision, talk with our partners who will be in the room and able to answer questions and kind of explain this whole concept to the public," said Corridan. "That's part of the master plan that we're working on and developing is how will the trail systems be laid out, so we want to share that with the public, and we look forward to people coming out."
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