Turn off Woodford-Tehachapi Road into the Golden Hills Nature Park and you'll find a working park. Tom Sawyer Lake has seen improvements, and there are trails for walking, biking and riding horses, plus picnic benches and informational signs. Tehachapi News has reported that the disc golf course was getting steady use. The bigger plans for the park are still on paper, and in late September 2026 those plans came down to a very practical question. A design exists and the environmental paperwork is approved. The largest single piece, a community center and a new parking lot, is tied to one $10 million grant. That grant can't move forward until two outside organizations agree to apply alongside the Golden Hills Community Services District.
What's out there today, and what's still a sketch
The district's 2023 master plan covers a 151.48-acre property off Woodford-Tehachapi Road. The planning work focuses on the 92.62-acre east property. The plan describes people walking, jogging, cycling, riding horses and birdwatching there, on fire access roads and non-motorized trails built for feet, bikes and hooves.
The plan separates what has already been done from what's proposed:
| Already in place | Proposed in the master plan |
|---|---|
| Tom Sawyer Lake improvements | Community center and maintenance building |
| Direct well-water supply | Restrooms and pavilions |
| Picnic and park benches | Playgrounds and dog parks |
| Informational signs | Basketball courts and two multiuse sports fields |
| Drainage rehabilitation and debris removal | New service roads, parking and a place to store horse trailers |
The plan, dated October 2023, lays out a 15-year vision. It says how quickly things get built depends on budgets, partnerships and alternative funding. Partnerships were part of the math from the start, and this fall they became the main question.
How the plan reached 30%
The project has moved in steady steps since the master plan was adopted:
- 2023. The district adopted the Golden Hills Nature Park Complex Master Plan.
- Choosing a firm. An ad hoc committee on Nature Park activity priorities recommended working with the engineering firm 4Creeks. As reported by Tehachapi News, board Vice President Matt Guggemos said the district could theoretically start digging right away. He said the committee wanted a partner that could firm up plans, get permits and line up financing, and that 4Creeks had a strong record of winning grants.
- Late summer 2025. The Loop reported that public comment on the park's environmental report would run through Sept. 19, 2025, with the final report expected at the board's Oct. 16 meeting.
- Environmental documents adopted. Tehachapi News reported that the board adopted the CEQA environmental documents unanimously.
- Sept. 10, 2026. 4Creeks presented a conceptual design that was 30% complete, enough to start pursuing grants. The board approved it in concept by a 3-0 vote. Directors Benham, Guggemos and King voted yes, and Directors Buckley and Wyatt were absent.
- Sept. 22, 2026. At a special meeting, the board heard comments on the Sept. 10 design and talked through how to break the project into phases.
An in-concept approval isn't a construction contract. It gives 4Creeks a design solid enough to put in front of grant programs. The September 10 minutes say exactly that.
The order 4Creeks proposed
Phasing matters because grants usually pay for defined pieces of a project. At the September 22 meeting, as reported by Tehachapi News, 4Creeks Principal Engineer Jason Watts said splitting the project into phases would give the district the framework it needs to apply for the millions of dollars in grants the project requires.
His proposed sequence:
- Groundwork. Grading and earthwork to prepare the site.
- Getting around. A new parking lot and walkways through the park.
- First courts and a field. One basketball court, two tennis courts, two pickleball courts and a baseball/softball field.
- More courts and soccer. Expansion based on community demand, then the soccer field.
- Revenue features and play areas. A pool and concession stand, along with playgrounds and general recreation.
Watts described the goal as fitting in "as many varieties of active areas as we can," adding sports quickly and expanding as demand grows.
What the board changed
Board members mostly agreed with the order of sports and said tennis, pickleball and basketball are underserved locally, so new courts would get used right away. They also asked for several changes, each of which affects what a park visitor would actually see:
- Build one court type at a time. Instead of a few courts of each sport now and more later, the board said installing as many of one type as possible at once would be more cost-effective.
- Restrooms earlier. They asked to move restrooms from the later phases into the early ones.
- A new entrance location. They asked to move an entrance from Woodford-Tehachapi Road to White Pine Drive.
- Keep buildings together. They asked that the planned buildings stay close to one another.
- Grass or turf. For the soccer field, the board leaned toward grass despite the higher maintenance cost, but made no firm decision.
The board also asked whether environmental reviews would have to be finished before grants come through. Watts said some grants prefer that, but it's rare. Most of the grants he has worked with pay for those reviews.
The September 22 agenda listed the item as receiving comments and giving direction. That makes these board requests guidance for the next draft, not an adopted phasing plan.
The $10 million piece and the partner requirement
This is where the timeline gets real. Watts said a single $10 million grant would cover both the community center and the parking lot. Parking and walkways are near the top of his phase list, so a lot of the early work depends on this one application.
According to Tehachapi News, Watts and 4Creeks Proposal Coordinator Stephanie Running said the application requires two organizations to partner with the CSD. That can be a local nonprofit and a public agency, or two local nonprofits. The partners would join the planning and use the buildings, and the district would remain the full owner.
Running said there are several possible partners, but 4Creeks had trouble getting some to respond, likely because the requests came from the firm and not from the district itself. Board members offered to help and sounded confident partners wouldn't be hard to find. As Board President Joe King put it in the Tehachapi News account:
"We've got plenty of contacts."
At the September 22 meeting, the partners were still being lined up. So the community center, the new parking lot and the horse-trailer storage the master plan describes are all still on the list of what comes next. The 30% design shows what the park could become. When it happens depends on how quickly the district lines up two partners and how the grant programs respond.
Following along from here
The Nature Park has come up repeatedly at Golden Hills CSD board meetings, and that's where the next steps will show up first: a revised phasing plan from 4Creeks, partner organizations announced, and grant applications filed. Agendas and minutes are posted on the Golden Hills CSD website, and the meetings are open to the public. If you're involved with a local nonprofit or public agency that could use a community center in Golden Hills, the partner requirement means the district may want to hear from you.
In the meantime, the park is open to enjoy as it is now. You can walk the trails, take a lap around Tom Sawyer Lake or play a round of disc golf. Check the district's site for any notices before heading out.
At Team Terri J, we pay attention to updates like this because a place like the Nature Park is part of what makes Golden Hills feel like home. If you want to talk about how projects around Golden Hills fit with your own plans, give us a call.
