Inside the Yosemite Land Transfer with Former Acting Deputy Superintendent Paul Stern

I've been asked a lot of questions about Yosemite, and I'm really pleased to have someone from Yosemite leadership on our program.

And I want to just kind of address the elephant in the room right out of the gate.

And I want to talk about the Hazel Green project in Yosemite.

And for the audience who has not been following the news on this, essentially a private developer is proposing to transfer some land with Yosemite National Park to gain access into Yosemite National Park.

And I think the key question on this project is, Paul, is this land transfer in the best interest of the American public and the National Park Service? And can you tell us a little bit more than what we know about the Hazel Green land transfer? Well, Eric, thanks for the softball

to start up.

I mean, come on now, right? Way to dive right into it.

Can we back up for just a quick moment and acknowledge that you have a former acting deputy superintendent in Yosemite on a climbing podcast.

I mean, just think about how far we've come.

And I think that's attributable to NPS leadership and the climbing community and the fact that we, you know... long ago uh the days of the rangers chasing away the climbers um has since passed and now we have a former deputy who has climbed lcap twice who basically got the job because of my climbing background so um it's good to be here it's good to collaborate with you um it's just it shows the type of advocacy people like you have done so i'm not filibustering i just want to come on and acknowledge that uh It's great to be friends with you and a great advocate of Access Fund.

So I think you just asked the all-important question, although I might phrase it slightly different just to match the statutory language.

And the question really is, does this proposed land exchange contribute to and is necessary for the protection, preservation of Yosemite? And of course, to answer that, you would need to know the details of any proposal.

And right now, no one knows that.

There's no specific concrete proposal out there right now.

So a lot of people, I think, are becoming irate.

in the abstract, and I don't peddle in clickbait.

I wanna have this discussion thoughtfully, but that's not to say people shouldn't be concerned.

That's not to say people shouldn't be worried about any precedent that's being set here.

So let's back up, let's set the stage, and then we can have a thoughtful conversation on this.

So Hazel Green Ranch is an 83-acre private property abutting the western boundary of Yosemite National Park.

It is a long history, a long relationship with Yosemite.

In fact, it was previously contemplated to be part of the Yosemite management plan.

That didn't happen.

In the 2000s, the then owners sought an easement on a county road that led into Yosemite that was rejected by the courts.

And now you have a private property firm called Kingsbarn Realty Capital that is now the owners of the land and are seeking to build luxury private units on it and they're seeking a small parcel of land to create a direct access point into the park so that they're property owners don't have to go through Big Oak Flat, which would actually require a significant amount of travel through forest service land that is non-paved.