Ameya Preserve, Part III
Montana State Land for Sale
By David Nolt, 12-21-07
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Editor's Note: This is the third installment of a series about the proposed Ameya Preserve development near Livingston, Montana.
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| The signature rock face on Wineglass Mountain towers near a state section which is critical elk winter range within Ameya Preserve property. The DNRC is considering selling two sections isolated in Ameya as part of the pilot land banking program. Photo courtesy of Ameya Preserve. | |
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In 2003 the Montana Legislature initiated the Montana Land Banking Program, partly to deal with this sort of issue. The intent of the program, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC), is “for the state to dispose of tracts of land that generally do not have legal access, generate substantially less income for the trust than their relative value or are difficult for the Department to manage, and to purchase replacement property with legal access, potential for increased Trust revenue and consequently is more efficient to manage.” The program was recently extended in the Montana Legislature until October 2011.
Over the last two years the land banking program generated $10,669,498 in sales revenue from 19,189 acres sold in Montana, while the state spent just over $9 million acquiring 24,294 acres. The estimated annual income from lands purchased between July 2006 and July 2007 was around $154,000. The actual income from lands sold was about $25,000.
State Sections 18 and 20 in Township 03 South, Range 09 East comprise 1,270 acres, and future phases of development at Ameya hinge on the acquisition of these sections. Land eligible for the land banking program must first go through an environmental review before going to the Montana Land Board for a vote. The lands are open to a public auction, although property owners with land surrounding sections for sale have the first bid and a chance to match any leading bid.
Dokken is pledging to protect about 900 acres in the two sections while developing about 300 acres. If he is not able to purchase the sections, Dokken says it is the environment that will suffer.
“We will have to find a different, and frankly, less environmentally friendly location for some of our home sites [if unable to purchase the sections],” the developers say. “We will also have to find a new area to put a secondary access road, which would actually have a greater impact on the elk. But if we decide not to purchase the state land, it will not stop our plans for Ameya Preserve, only change them, although not necessarily for the better environmentally.”
In August 2006 the DNRC released an environmental assessment (EA) on the potential sale of Sections 18 and 20. The EA was widely criticized as inadequate for lacking significant public input and for not taking into account the public value of the elk winter range traversing the two parcels and other natural resource values. This prompted DNRC to go back to the drawing board to create a new alternative that included deed restrictions limiting development on the two sections
On July 19, 2007 the Park County Commission held a public meeting with the Park County Planning Office. Wade Dokken and Ameya’s legal counsel, Joby Sabol II, also attended. At the meeting Park County Land Use Planner Mike Inman said his planning department had serious concerns over the sale – concerns which were not addressed in the EA.
“We see potential conflicts with what the state is proposing as a sale,” Inman told the commissioners. “…The development seems to contradict the vision and goals of Ameya itself.”
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“This puts us and potential developers in conflict right off the bat,” Inman said.
Inman also referenced a recent statement made by Mary Sexton, director of the Montana DNRC, indicating counties in the state could be penalized for allowing development in the wildland urban interface, which is expensive and dangerous to defend from wildfires.
After Inman’s testimony, Sabol – visibly upset – called Inman’s testimony “off-point” and said the planners appeared to be “confused.” Sabol said the DNRC was only examining the sale, not potential development. Still, Inman contented, he did not see how the planning office could in good faith not comment on environmental and human health and safety issues concerning the sale of state lands to a developer intending to put homes on the property.
Jim Barrett, of the Park County Environmental Council, referenced the Montana Environmental Policy Act – which the land sale must comply with – and recommended the DNRC provide a “reasonable range of alternatives.” In the original EA, the DNRC only proposed two options: sell or don’t sell.
The Ameya team left the meeting frustrated with the commissioners and planning office, and the commissioners left frustrated with the developers and the DNRC. The meeting was the first confrontation between the developers and the county over the land sale and proved to be symbolic of what the relationship between the Ameya team and many Park County locals has become.
DNRC first published a scoping notice soliciting public comment on the proposed sale of Sections 18 and 20 in a square-inch block of copy in the classifieds of the Livingston Enterprise on March 24, 2006 and announced the proposed land sale. The comment period would close in just over two weeks on April 10, 2006. Many said the placement of the ad and length of the comment period were an insufficient scoping effort. On several other land sales through the program, the DNRC published scoping announcements in multiple papers and allowed comment periods of 30 days.
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| The Bullis Creek drainage and Ameya Preserve property as seen from the Paradise Valley floor. Photo by David Nolt | |
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“We are still maintaining that the long-term approach on the subdivision – from a wildlife perspective – is not very prudent,” Lemke says. “We’re concerned that when you throw that many people and homes on the landscape – regardless of how it’s designed – there is a high potential for wildlife conflict. You are, in effect, turning an amenity into a liability.”
Lemke calls the Bullis Creek drainage – where the majority of Phase One will be – “one of the most diverse wildlife habitats on the whole ranch.” He argues it would be better to shift the development to where other phases are tentatively planned to be. Lemke says initial construction activity on the property is already dispersing the elk, and he is worried further construction and the development itself could “alter wildlife use and distribution in significant ways.”
This would seemingly undermine a major aspect of the Ameya vision, and Dokken disputes Lemke’s claim regarding the Bullis Creek habitat. Dokken says it's not even close to being the top habitat on the property. Dokken also says building envelope design and deed restrictions on pets and fences will decrease conflict with wildlife. But Lemke says the sheer numbers of wildlife in the area and number of homes planned for Ameya all but guarantee such conflict.
Bill Orsello, a member of the executive board of the Montana Wildlife Federation and a participant in the rule-making process for the Montana Land Banking Program, said two of the biggest issues in establishing the program were how to appraise potential sale properties and also how to deal with environmentally sensitive land.
The group compromised on appraisal by requiring sale properties to be appraised both with and without public access. As for sensitive lands, one of Orsello’s biggest concerns, the group punted. Staffers at the DNRC asked those who were concerned about the environmental issue to trust the agency when they said the intent of the program was not to sell wildlife habitat. Orsello says the DNRC told him they would only try to sell “low hanging fruit.”
The biggest issue for Orsello in the Park County sale is the elk wintering range, which is in short supply across the state.
“There is nowhere we can point to and say we have a surplus of winter range, especially with public access,” Orsello contends. “There are no bargains out there on winter range. The state loses even in the best-case scenario that the landowner is tolerant to elk … Giving up winter range is probably one of the worst ideas they have out there. The state is actively trying to buy winter range around Montana. To take land that we already own and sell it is just poor policy and it’s contrary to the negotiated rules we have.”
The DNRC opened a new comment period on the third alternative of the EA on June 29, 2007. The initial comment period ended on July 16, 2007, and, once again, the DNRC received criticism on the length of the comment period and the fact that it included the Fourth of July holiday. The DNRC later extended the period to July 23, 2007. Many said the amended EA still did not address critical issues concerning the environment and public health and safety. The release of the new amended environmental assessment is due soon. In it, the agency will be including more alternatives to the outright sale, and another public comment period will follow.
The file on the sale contains a fair amount of comments, the lion’s share of which raise concerns about the sale or are in outright opposition. Several surrounding landowners expressed concerns about the sale, and groups like the Northwest Section of the Montana Wildlife Society, the Park County Rod & Gun Club and the Headwaters Sportsman’s Association all are urging the DNRC not to sell the property to the developers.
There is an underlying concern among the land sale’s critics that the DNRC attempted to fast-track the sale of sections 18 and 20 to Dokken. All sales in the land banking process are open to a public auction. Because he owns the surrounding land, Dokken is the most likely buyer if the DNRC sells the property. Still, the majority of discussions around the sale seem to center only on Ameya, and Dokken’s repeated claims of owning 11,000 acres give the appearance that he feels entitled to the public land.
On September 13, 2007, DNRC area manager Garry Williams, DNRC Trust Lands Unit Manager Craig Campbell, School Superintendent Linda McCullough and a representative for Montana Land Board Member John Morris held an “information-gathering session” in Livingston in response to opposition letters to the Bullis Creek land sale.
At the meeting, Park County Commissioner Jim Durgan asked the state representatives why all discussion of the sale focused on Ameya, and Durgan even went so far as to question whether deal-cutting was going on. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer sits on the Montana Land Board, and he attended a Democratic fundraiser Dokken hosted on his property in August 2006.
When asked about the relationship between the Governor and Dokken, Schweitzer spokeswoman Sarah Elliott referred to Dokken as merely an “acquaintance,” yet someone in the governor’s office called the developer to alert them of the inquiry soon after.
Also at issue is an exploratory water test well illegally drilled on State Section 20 by Allied Engineering. At the September meeting Allied’s Doug Chandler emphasized he called the DNRC as soon as his firm realized where they had drilled. Chandler called it a mistake and blamed it on “a young man that logged the holes … and put them in the wrong spot," though several at the meeting raised major doubts about the possibility of such a miscalculation in the age of sophisticated GPS positioning.
There is also the inherent issue of fair valuation for the land. If public sections – especially environmentally important ones- are auctioned off at bargain prices, it stands to reason developers could capitalize on this to the detriment of the land and public access. The state sections within Ameya are currently valued at about $3,000 an acre, though the DNRC will reappraise the sections if they decide to sell.
Land eligible for the land banking program is appraised based on the cost of undeveloped land, which varies greatly across Montana. Take, for example, two sales through the program in 2006: 1,600 acres in eastern Montana’s Treasure County sold for $368,000 – a paltry $230 per acre. Land in Flathead County carries a significantly different price tag: 85 acres sold there for $6.4 million – more than $7,500 per acre.
The disparity between prices in eastern and western Montana accurately reflects the demand for land in each region. But it's inherently difficult to value the environmental significance of a given piece of property - and of course it's true market value is also related to what a buyer might want to do with it. How the DNRC will judge all that remains to be seen.
(Correction: This story initially stated that the land banking program would sunset in October 2008, but the Montana Legislature recently extended the program until October 2011. The error has been corrected, our apologies.)
Editor's Note: This is the third installment of a series about the proposed Ameya Preserve development near Livingston, Montana. (Click here to read Part I, click here to read Part II, here for Part IV and here for Part V.
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Comments
What we're seeing is another iteration of the new feudalism. Wade Dokken represents it in spades.
Is there political pressure coming all the way from the governor's office to sell these state sections to Dokken for a song? It's starting to appear so.
I have followed this issue from the beginning and it does appear it is coming from the Governor Office. The selling out of Montana is nothing new, however it is a great example of how Democrats are just as corrupt as the Republicans when it comes to taking care of those with deep pockets that help get them elected. Ethics and the general public be damned.
Schweitzer made all kinds of promises to the hunters of this state during his campaign, but once in office took on the true colors of just another politician, no statesmanship here just politics as usual.
It is laughable that Dokken is proposing an environmental friendly community out in the middle of nowhere, destroying wildlife winter range, wildlife corridors, while requiring residents and their service providers to expend climate changing energy resources (which the exploration of is already destroying countless acres of wildlife habitat in the West) just to reach this so called ‘environmental friendly community’. What a farce.
Park County planning staff did an outstanding job at evaluating the natural hazards on the Bullis Creek property. They actually did the GIS analyses that Design Workshop (Ameya's landscape architectural firm), claims to have conducted in locating appropriate development sites.
1) Anyone interested in seeing the location of geologic faults on the Ameya property can go to the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology website and view the geologic map for the Livingston Quadrangle: http://www.mbmg.mtech.edu/pdf_100k/livingston-tiled.pdf
2) Dokken’s lawyer was simply attempting to intimidate Park County officials. The County was responding to DNRC specific request for comments related to the proposed land sale (in accordance wiht the Montana Environmental Policy Act). County Planning staff and Commissioners provided the comments DNRC requested. It is up to DNRC to analyze those comments and determine what is relevant. It is not the role of Wade Dokken’s lawyer to dictate to County officials what Team Ameya considers to be relevant.
3) The unauthorized exploratory test well in section 20 was no mistake. Here is a direct quote from the introduction of a 2005 hydrogeology report prepared by Allied Engineering (This report is on file at the Park County Planning Office).
“This report presents the findings, analysis and results of our preliminary hydrogeological reconnaissance and feasibility study of the proposed Bullis Creek Ranch Development, a conservation-minded development located near Livingston, Montana. The site is a continuous 9,175 acre tract with two state sections contained within the property boundary. The state sections were included in our study and analyses.”
This report contains a topographical map showing well hole locations. There is a label on the map titled “Upper Meadow Development,” with a line going from the label to the approximate location of the well hole drilled in Section 20.
Allied Engineering filed a well log report with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology (copy available online) for the well drilled in Section 20. Well hole coordinates were recorded with a global positioning system (GPS). Interesting, the well log filed with the state has no water production information. However, Allied Engineering’s 2005 report indicates that the well produced 33 gallons per minute.
4) Mr. Dokken claims that if he doesn’t acquire school trust sections 18 and 20, the environment will suffer. That appears to be a threat and inconsistent with his claims of “environmental sensitivity.”
In essence, Mr. Dokken made a bad business decision when purchasing the Bullis Creek property for a resort development. Aside from being prime wildlife habitat, the property is rife with geologic and other natural hazards (e.g., prone to wildlfire). Park County Commissioners adequately pointed this out in their comments to DNRC. Mr. Dokken knew full well that the Bullis Creek Ranch consisted of 9,175 deeded acres and included grazing leases on an additional 1,270 acres of public school trust land. The fact that he might cause more environmental damage and adverse impacts to wildlife if he does not acquire the two school trust sections is bad planning on his part and really should be of no concern to the Land Board when deciding whether or not to sell the sections. The state is not responsible for the poor business decisions of Mr. Dokken.
The state's interest could probably be best served by being allowed to enter in a partnership for the sale of the land to the final buyers. The state would then profit just as handsomely as Dokken and have a good nut to spend getting some good replacement ground.
It is worth at least 3000 an acre for development and likely quite a lot more upon final build out or final plat. It won't be worth doodly in a capital sense if it becomes an isolated parcel with a Ho Chi Minh Trail for access.
As for the political connections, Dokken is a pretty loyal democrat spender, with the exception of Steve Forbes -- I guess he likes a flat tax. Monica Lindeen and Jon Tester have enjoyed Dokken money, as part of about 90 to 100 grand in political contributions since 1999. On the state level, Wade supported Turner wolfer Mike Phillips for the legislature. That's nice to know.
If the elk that lost their habitat in the Fridley fire and the Big Creek fire have moved north and have taken the wolf feeding ground with them, they will either adapt to Dokken's design or move once more. Terrible public policy on public land fuels management is much harder on elk than big development. Or did we take our eye off the ball that is the Rocky Mountain National Park where "sharpshooters" are being prepared to disrupt the over abundant elk population that has come to like living with development, with hopefully some fatal results and sadly, some social disruption for the elk? Planned parenthood for elk is also on the table. I wonder if the elk are any more prepared than a Spears girl to avail themselves to it.
So my question is why is the Dokken deal some sort of macbre plot to destroy wildlife? If the State sections are 18 and 20, there must have been a prior State land exchange because if memory serves me, 16 and 36 were the State sections when townships were opened to entry. Or is Montana different as to State and School sections?
I like the State as a participant in the prospect of development. And take the money and go buy much more habitat land elsewhere, land that the enviros and their allies in Government don't have on their conflagration dance card. And if you look at the north side of the Wineglass, it is all being developed except public land. The onslaught of urban swells with money to burn is not going to be stopped. Now that you have yours, and don't want anyone else to have theirs, you have a cause for the rest of your life. That is the BANANA response. Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. The local Banana Despot's war cry.
Montana was once supported by natural resource extraction. Now it is supported by new residents' wealth transfers from other areas. People are not earning their money in Montana, but bringing it with them. They are not coming to buy a triple wide in Malta. They are coming to see something other than a cell tower or a water ball on the horizon. They are coming to see the sun come up over a mountain and go down over a mountain. And, since the know-it-all enviros are so damned intent on destroying ranching, and God knows the ranchers are very aware that their future is cloudy at best, the protected act of a willing seller and a willing buyer making an exchange is happening, and the new owners are not all on the same page as the Defenders of Wildlife. Unintended consequences? Not on your life!!!! If the Greenies don't know that an attack on private property by way of public land grazing would result in a change in land use to its new highest economic value, they did not do their due diligence. If that was never the known outcome, those folks are dumber than a bucket of rocks, and could not tell the difference 'tween soul owl poop and a good grade of marmalade.
Better you opponents, in-fighters, wishful thinkers, green gawkers, save the earth types, all stand on the corner with a tin can and beg for enviro alms. Buy the ground yourself, with your money. If you had not been sitting in a tree or tied to a cement block in the middle of a gravel road, you could have been out making a buck like Dokken. Your priorities were wrong. Go earn the money and buy the ground. Don't ask someone else to do it for you. Leave the taxpayers alone. You have plenty of tax avoidance schemes that you can use. Got do it yourself!!!
bearbait, I always read you, but I gotta call the highest level of bull on this one:
You wrote:
Terrible public policy on public land fuels management is much harder on elk than big development.
end quote
A big recovering burned area, with all that new forage, versus a giant subdivision or city? Wha?
And we are discussing an issue of state land, public land here, there's no reason to get angry and call Montana citizens names like "green gawkers" or "save the earth type" because they are asking questions about the disposition of their lands. Why, in your comments, is the anger tail wagging the thoughtful dog?
Fight logging, burn big old trees instead.
Fight logging, slick off and sell instead.
Screw ranchers, sell off cows and build houses.
Smart growth, stupid sprawl.
Density limits, more spread.
Fight wind, build coal.
Earth to Gaia! Yo!
It was all peace and love, and then Sheila and the Praetorian Guard, or whatever her thugs with the guns and radios were called, took over the local town of Antelope by fraudulent residencies, voting the locals out of office, then it was trying to food poison people in the county seat(accomplished), and finally, they tried to kill a prosecutor or judge, made that threat. The acolytes went to jail, and the Baghwan left in the night on his jet but got nailed refueling. Only in Oregon. The last deal was the al Qaeda training camp at Bly..Montana had the unibomber and the Jordan outfit. I think we quit giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens, stiffs, and any thug who had showed up with a light bill and the money.
So Dennis Washington ended up with the Rajneeshpuram ranch. Montana RailLink Washington. M-K Washington. I have not heard what is going on over there now. Nor where all the Rolls Royces ended up.
Man, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, craps on the sidewalk, it is a duck. Bullis Creek is no longer a cattle ranch. Has not been one for quite a while. Cattle ranching does not pay the bills on charismatic land under assault by the left and greenies. It is a duck. It is a development duck. Call it Leroy, or Boy, and it is still no longer a cattle ranch. Cattle are not worth that much money and the work is too hard. Besides, if you pay attention to demographics, the people who can buy those properties are getting old, have not had many children, and the market for McMansions will dry up down the road. They will be like belly buttons: everyone has one. And then the value falls, and you will have the Montana equivalent of The Wonders of Detroit, that great website extolling the virtues of modern day Detroit, the soiled dove of American cities. The wildlife will love it. Wild dogs, feral cats, unwanted llamas, and fields of dead horses now that they can't be slaughtered in the US and the rendering business has phased into biodiesel and restaurant grease and is not in the least interested in your ailing or aging horse. Again I say it. The world will change, and not be the place we grew up in just as the place we grew up in was not the place of our fathers. Go look at the bones in the Museum of the Rockies. Put it in perspective.
Southern California, prior to the sixities, was replete with rich farms--citrus groves--that have been replaced with urban sprawl. These were not marginal agriculture lands that are commonly found in Montana. They were highly productive orchards. Sprawl has gobbled up farmlands in California's Central Valley & the Los Angles Basin despite the fact that these are some of the richest farmlands in the world. Marginal lands & ranches will not compete with urban sprawl. There are 3 ways to preserve open space on private lands: conservation easements, purchase & zoning. Yes, the blame game is fun but it doen't solve the problem.
I have read weekly newspaper stories, all in support of taking out hyroelectric dams and eliminating irrigation from the Klamath River to help salmon, and not one talking head, writing journalist, or ecoadvocate mentions how to replace clean hydropower, or that half the Klamath pre-European flow at the ocean is from the Trinity River, the cold water tributary, a no flow- through -desert, no farmable land in its watershed river running through the Klamath-Trinity National Forest. But not one of those stories will tell you that the Trinity is totally appropriated by Central and Southern California water rights, that as much as 98% of its annual flow has been diverted to Shasta Lake by canal and tunnel. There is now a limit on diversion---no more than 65%, if they get caught, and none of that is ever in the paper. Just to have a river when some water had to flow down it, the Trinity needed to have a channel bulldozed and brush and trees ripped from the former river bed, their having grown since the dam was built to intercept the water. The ecoadvocates are intent on going after Oregon small farmers, and Big Caleeeforneeeea Ag gets a pass. Their dam and diversion is safe. (Like safe from 5 Congresspersons from Oregon, and well over 50 from Caleeeforneeea.)When the tyranny of the urban majority, and the Congressional lackeys for 38 million Caleeeforneeeans, come together in a perfect storm of water need for urban expansion, that water will fill swimming pools and golf course water hazards. All on former ag lands. That assumes, of course, that the Black Plague will never happen again. Which, in reality, would be a godsend for salmon and very bad for my unborn great grandchildren, if there is to be any.
My humble opinion is that I am in this with Marion and Skinner because we have lived and watched it happen. We have watched the Caleeeforneeeans with a pile of money from selling a house and a pension move to where we live, and create a demand for services and resources that come at a cost to the very environment they had to be part of. All those pilgrims come to the area, and build on former ag land or timber land, and then join the NIMBY BANANA club to keep anyone else from having anything to say about their lives, while advocating that they, now all knowing and true believers, should reign supreme over all things not of their ownership. Not without a fight, Bucko!!! Not without finding they have adversaries. Not without an airing of differing opinions. And don't think many have not had their economic pants taken down by a rancher just tired of 20 hour days, 6 months of too damned cold, who could really give a damn about sticking around when he could walk with a goodly part of the other guy's dough. Hell, if I were a rancher, I would WANT someone trying to run me off while several others was a standing at the gate with an open checkbook. Sometimes you need a boost to make a change. You can leave with a clear conscience, and enough money to buy a real ranch in the Dakotas or Texas, and take a winter vacation to Baja. Yeeee Hawww!!!! (that is redneck for "win-win"---which is so much better than "lose-lose"). And on your way out of town, watch the illegal alien framers throw up the skeleton of another MacMansion or twenty. That howl you hear is not wolves, but enviros whining about development.
I am not sure how the evolving form farms in California to homes came about, I haven't' really studied it. I would not be surprised if restrictions on pesticides, fertilizer use, pest control, etc had something to do with it. I'm sure the influx of people looking for paradise on earth did. I really do not know what that has to do with trying to force ranchers in Montana and Wyoming off the land.
The best way to preserve open spaces is to get off the backs of the ranchers. Quit trying to use wolves to force them out....or anything else for that matter. If you do make up your mind, it is THEIR land to do with as they see fit.
You are already destroying our forests with your beetle nurseries that you will not allow to be thinned. Instead of reasonable harvest we have devastating fires that leave some places sterile in the aftermath.
==FULLY valuing state lands with the amenity value piece included.
==Require developers to either pay or provide for wildlife offset land purchases of comparable value and use.
Buyers are not looking to put cattle or sheep on this land, they want the isolation, views, and romance that the land represents. $3000.00 an acre is absurd for this prime land. Comparable land is selling a around a million per 20 acres. $2.3 million for a single lot confirms the truer value of this land.
Personally, when I view the rapid and rabid private land development happening where five generations of my family have managed to eek out living, I resolve to save our public lands from being ripped off for the benefit of a few politicians and developers. For those of us that made a conscious decision to say and fight for the Montana we love, there is no way to compete with the floating capital that is coming into this state by the wagonloads. Public lands being our last refuge are what we as Montanans can pass on to the generations.
The cost analysis, which Mr. Nolt showed of the Land Banking Program, seems to show that the program is barely breakeven, that was before wages, and overhead expenses are applied. I think Jack is correct; this program needs to be audited, not only for fiscal responsibility but for policy adherence also.