Trump Administration Considers Development of Private Road in Yosemite

The Trump administration is considering a deal to allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in Yosemite National Park and build an access road, the company said.

Nevada-based real estate developer Kingsbarn Realty Capital wants to build a short road connecting an 83-acre plot, known as Hazel Green Ranch, just outside the park to Yosemite’s main attractions, first reported by the publication NOTUS. The deal, if it goes through, would exchange property of equal value owned by the developer for the property that is part of the park, according to documents reviewed by KQED.

Attorney Lanny J. Davis, who is representing Kingsbarn in talks with the National Park Service, confirmed the developer’s intent to build the access road and argued the more direct access route is “supportive of environmental values, since it will reduce air pollution from the longer, less safe route.”

“Over the last six months, Kingsbarn Realty Capital and I have been working directly and cooperating with National Park Service staff at Yosemite National Park in California to provide safe access from the Hazel Green property to the park entrance,” Davis wrote Friday.

The proposal would revive a bid dating back to the early 2000s, when a prior owner pushed to build the private road. That attempt failed under the Bush and Obama administrations and lost in court. When the land changed hands to Kingsbarn in 2024, the NOTUS investigation found that the new owners tried to reopen the issue — this time with more interest from the Trump administration. 

The National Parks Conservation Association’s Senior Pacific Regional Director Neal Desai told KQED by email that his organization has verified the administration’s communications to Congress cited in the NOTUS article. 

“Our national parks right now are in crisis, and Yosemite National Park is in chaos,” he said. “The public expects the parks service to be protecting our national parks, not sitting through meetings with developers and scheming up ways to sell Yosemite. This is absurd to the highest levels.”

In an email to KQED, the Department of the Interior denied the framing of NOTUS’ report.

“This story relies on anonymous allegations to manufacture a political narrative that simply is not true,” the department wrote. “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 went on to say that “any land exchange or access proposal involving National Park Service lands would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies, including required environmental review and public notification processes,” and that if a proposal for the easement advances, the department will follow all federal law. “Anonymous speculation does not change those facts.”

“No final decisions have been made,” the department said.

In his email to KQED, Davis said the proposal was “consistent” with his “pro-environment and progressive values and life history.”

“Without a direct access route, every trip from the Hazel Green area requires a significantly longer drive — twice as long, at a minimum — on unpaved forest roads and thus more air pollution,” he wrote. “The new access road would be safer for drivers and generate substantially less vehicle emissions.”

Former Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher called this latest attempt to carve a private road through the park “ridiculous.”

“It’s another nightmare for the National Park Service and Yosemite specifically,” Neubacher told KQED. Under his leadership, he said, “We said we didn’t have the authority, and we thought it would be illegal to give it an easement. Now all of a sudden the Trump administration is really pushing this.”

Neubacher pushed back against the DOI’s characterization of the deal.

“As far as I can tell, that story is 100% accurate,” he said. “And they’re covering up their actions on this. They were hoping, I think, that it would just slide through in a sort of a secret way.”

Neubacher said that in 2012, during his tenure at Yosemite, his office did a legal review of this very land exchange and concluded the Park Service didn’t have the authority to go through with it.

“There was no legal right for this developer to have access into the Yosemite National Park,” he said. “The only thing that’s changed is you have a new administration that just seems to be pro-development.”

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Mark Rose, senior Sierra Nevada program manager for National Parks Conservation Association, called the move “an attack on the American people that own this national park,” in a statement to KQED.

“The Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle America’s conservation legacy are now taking aim at Yosemite with this secretive, backroom deal that would turn over Park Service land to a private developer,” he said. 

Neubacher said he believes it would take an act of Congress to go through with the exchange — or it’s likely to fail in court again. Earlier this year, Congress was informed that the Park Service was considering the land exchange, but declined to include the project on a list they endorsed for a federal funding pot, NOTUS reported.

“When you do a land exchange, you have to demonstrate it’s in the best interests of the government,” Neubacher said. “I don’t see how anybody can claim that.”

The Yosemite NPS employees union released a statement on Friday criticizing the proposed deal.

“As stewards of Yosemite, the ceding of public lands for private interests is antithetical to what we stand for as employees of the National Park Service,” representatives of the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 465 wrote. “We are dismayed that the administration is choosing to prioritize this deal while dismissing and further exacerbating the issues that negatively impact NPS employees at Yosemite.”

Jesse Chakrin, director of the philanthropic group, Fund for People in Parks, said he was surprised to hear the particular area, along the drive from Hodgdon Meadow toward Crane Flat, would potentially be up for sale.

“It’s a beloved area,” he said. “It is a beautiful spot that has the best dogwood in the park, probably. It has amazing and wonderful flowers in the spring and fall colors in the fall.”

But his biggest shock, Chakrin said, is what the Trump administration’s approach to the deal could mean for the future of parks. 

“What it indicates to me is that there is no boundary on what they are considering as far as maximizing the benefit to a small number of very wealthy individuals,” he said. “And that’s not what National Parks are for.”