Out at serene Gazzam Lake, at the end of the gravelly extension of Marshall Road, a new trail may soon forge through the trees.

Unfortunately for nature enthusiasts, it’s not a walking path, but a private access road that would meander southward to connect nine yet-to-be-constructed houses from serenity to civilization.

For property owners, who have talked about building a road there for more than a decade, it’s about developing their land.

Still, they concede the idea may not sit well with some.

“There are people who may think they’re being swindled out of park land,” said Jamie Acker, owner of one of the properties and part of the road-building effort. “But this is a road that has always been on the drawing board to be put in eventually.”

The road – details of which are still being worked out – would stretch some 1,800 feet from near the beginning of the Gazzam walking trail to the undeveloped lots west of the lake.

Building it would allow vehicle access to future homeowners who would not otherwise be able to get to their property.

It would jut off of the current gravel road that many think of as being part of Marshall Road, but is actually a public easement – meaning neither the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park District nor the city control the property.

It would cut between the entrances to Gazzam Lake and the Close Property, on what is now a trail linking the parcels.

Property owners submitted a pre-application for the project to the city in 2004 before the plan wilted. Acker said the idea has since regained momentum and now the group is “as close as we’ve ever been.”

Since the road would be built on an easement that was already established when the park district bought Gazzam Lake in 1994, the project is entirely driven by the property owners.

The group has been working with the park district and the Bainbridge Island Land Trust to mitigate impacts on the surrounding landscape. Barring any setbacks, construction could begin as early next year, a goal that assistant city engineer Ross Hathaway believes is feasible.

“I don’t see any major impediments,” he said. “It’s up to the property owners to pull everything together, but it doesn’t look like there are any critical areas issues.”

Park district senior planner Perry Barrett said that because the road would begin near the area where cars currently park, new parking would need to be created, including two paved spaces accessible to people with disabilities.

Land trust executive director Karen Molinari stressed that her group has nothing to do with building the road. Its interest is in securing conservation easements in order to do as little damage to the area as possible.

“The fact is, these people have a right to use their property,” she said, adding that the property owners have worked hard to be conscious of the environment.

All but one have granted the land trust a 300 foot conservation easement, with the other agreeing to an easement of 150 feet.

Some of them recently walked a rough path of the proposed road with plant expert Olaf Ribeiro to determine which trees should be protected.

Acker, who spent two years in the mid-1990s on a committee that worked to make Gazzam a park, said the property owners were “very sensitive” to the area.

He said they had thought about building driveways up the hillside from Crystal Springs Drive, but the terrain is simply too steep for them to do so.

“Unfortunately, there’s really no access from there,” he said.

Since property owners appear intent, Molinari said there’s little that can be done.

“The best of all scenarios would be to leave it pristine,” she said. “But what can you do? Now we just need to minimize the impact.”