Yosemite land swap could face legal roadblocks
A private developer wants to build a short road into Yosemite, but some experts say plans for a land exchange with the National Park Service could run afoul of a 1978 law.
BY HEATHER RICHARDS | 09/02/2026 01:11 PM EDT
A developer’s effort to acquire a piece of Yosemite National Park for a private road could face a statute-sized problem.
Some park experts say the developer’s request to the National Park Service — which involves exchanging a tract of land elsewhere for a small piece of interest in Yosemite — would infringe on a 1978 law that strengthened conservation as a chief priority for all park lands.
“A good court challenge will determine that this cannot be done,” said Jon Jarvis, the National Park Service director during the Obama administration.
If approved, the land exchange would fulfill a decadeslong effort to connect a private piece of land called Hazel Green Ranch to one of the most magnificent national parks in the country. The move — rebuffed by previous administrations — would send the property’s value skyrocketing.
Nevada-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital bought the property in 2024, with plans to develop it. The ranch is less than a mile from Yosemite’s Big Oak Flat Road, but it doesn’t have a direct connection. Instead, ranch visitors must take a more than one-hour trek to enter the national park.
NOTUS first reported last week that Trump officials are pressuring the National Park Service to cede interest in the land between the road and the ranch to Kingsbarn, whose CEO is a GOP donor. The news comes amid a push by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to prioritize visitor access to parks and boost ties between public lands and the communities and businesses that rely on them.
The Interior Department has downplayed the proposal’s progress and denied that ties between the developer and Trump officials have pressured the Park Service to accept.
“There has been no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome, and claims suggesting the Department is secretly working to hand over National Park Service land to a private developer are false,” the department said in a statement.
The department said any land exchange for park property “would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes. No final decisions have been made.”
Jarvis said the land swap, if approved, could run afoul of the Redwood amendment, a 1978 addition to the Organic Act that explicitly strengthened the conservation value of all park lands and made any suspension of those protections subject to congressional approval.
“It’s likely unlawful,” echoed Don Neubacher, a former superintendent of Yosemite who is now a board member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. Neubacher said his understanding is that the land swap would need to be in the public interest and a private developer’s access doesn’t qualify.
He pointed to NPS’s rules on land exchanges which state that “no rigid rules can be established as to when or when not to attempt an exchange” but that “no exchange should be considered where there is no demonstrable benefit to the United States.”
Lanny Davis, a former lawyer for Bill Clinton representing Kingsbarn, said he was enlisted by a friend to try to help the developer gain approval for the road, arguing that it would be an environmental benefit by cutting down on driving time. He said NPS denied his efforts to buy the strip of land roughly six months ago, but the idea of a land exchange came from Park Service personnel during negotiations.
“We wanted to just buy the damn easement. It wasn’t that much land. It didn’t have, to my mind, there was no legal reason that we couldn’t. But there is a federal policy about selling public land, much less park land,” Davis said.
The land swap, he argued, was a legal vehicle to move the road forward.
Interior did not answer questions about whether a land exchange would need congressional approval. But the department appeared to advance the project by including it on a list to Congress of potential Land and Water Conservation Fund projects, which was viewed by POLITICO. LWCF provides money to acquire new pieces of federal land, which are often adjacent to or landlocked within public lands like national parks or federal wildlife refuges.
“NPS does not have legal authority to grant an interest in land and therefore, has been working with the landowner on a land exchange,” the agency told Congress in the project report. “This will require the landowner to purchase property inside the park or within other NPS units in California (not yet identified), which provide a demonstrable benefit to the United States.”
Lawmakers respond
Some Democrats have objected to using LWCF funds for the ranch’s proposed land swap. That includes Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, as well as California’s Democratic senators.
“The Land and Water Conservation Fund exists to acquire land and interests in land in order to safeguard natural areas, water resources, and cultural heritage — and to provide recreation opportunities for all Americans,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) in a statement. “Projects should be chosen on merit, not on an applicant’s connections to high-ranking Trump administration officials.”
Davis, who has represented a long list of high-profile clients including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, slammed claims that the project was moving forward on political grease. Davis has not named Kingsborn or CEO Jeff Pori in his lobbying disclosures.
“I did not go to — God forbid I should say the words — the Trump White House,” Davis said, noting that he is a “progressive Democrat.” “I did not go to the Hill. I did not lobby.”
Kingsbarn Realty Capital recently worked with the Newmark Group and Hankey Capital, which have ties to Trump officials, as NOTUS first reported.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick formerly chaired the Newmark Group and only divested from the company in May 2025, months after joining the Trump administration. Don Hankey, chair of Hankey Capital, is also the chair of an insurance company that underwrote President Donald Trump’s $175 million bond in his appeal in 2024 of a New York civil fraud judgment.
Pori, who told The Washington Post the ranch would be used for vacation rentals, is also a GOP donor and contributed more than $12,000 to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and other Republican causes since 2025, according to the Federal Election Commission.
The former owner of Hazel Ranch, Lewis Geyser, also sought approval for the short road into the national park to support a plan to develop those lands as a resort. After the Park Service denied those efforts, Geyser unsuccessfully sued the agency in 2007. He lost again on appeal in 2012.
Jarvis said allowing the road would set a precedent for other developers looking to capitalize on their proximity to national parks or encroach on park boundaries.
“There are many, many private properties along the boundaries of national parks that would love to have their own access roads,” Jarvis said.
Frank Dean, former president and CEO of the Yosemite Conservancy, said the road could grant unfair access to a small subset of people over other members of the public.
“It would be a real privilege to have that right,” he said.
Dean was unsure of the legality of the land swap but thought it unlikely to pass court muster.
“Since it’s an old park, they don’t have the authority to dispose of land,” he said. I am running a few minutes late; my previous meeting is running over.
“Once it’s created as a national park, it shouldn’t be ever sacrificed.”