The controversy that engulfs land speculator Tom Chapman swirls around how to value land.
Where a national park or the Forest Service appraises land by comparable sales of nearby undeveloped land, Chapman values land for its potential to anchor high-end homes. In the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, park officials in 2003 appraised 112 acres Chapman and his investors owned at $500,000. He wanted $1.2 million. Today, he’s asking $11.4 million for his 4,700-square-foot house on 33 acres and $3.2 million for five homesites on 79 acres.
“We can’t do that sky-is-the-limit appraisal,” said Dave Roberts, management assistant with the park, which has an annual budget of $1.3 million. “We are as far away on price as the Black Canyon is deep.”
Roberts said Chapman’s ranch-level house blends well with the natural landscape and was “tastefully done.” But plans for a 25,000-square-foot monster mansion on the park’s highest spot would be visible for miles.
Another fear is that if Chapman sells his home for his asking price, it would set a new “comparable sale” standard, meaning the government’s appraisal for undeveloped land inside park boundaries could skyrocket.
“If he establishes there is market for this kind of stuff it certainly could influence value. That’s seems to be what he is testing,” said Tim Wohlgenant, director of the Colorado office of the Trust for Public Lands. “But he is part of a much bigger issue surrounding backcountry development in general. There are lots of people developing cabins in the backcountry and they are having a much larger impact than Chapman’s one-off projects. At the same time he is sort of a poster child for why we need to do our work.”
The National Park Service’s list of priority parcels for acquisition includes 1.8 million acres at an estimated price of $1.9 billion. As park officials continue to identify critical lands for protection, funding for park service acquisition fell from $147.9 million in 1999 to $45.1 million in 2009.
This year, Congress allocated $86.3 million to acquire land and the park service has requested $106.3 million for 2011, but none of that is planned for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
The priority is to buy land that hasn’t been developed from willing sellers, said Howard Miller, deputy chief of the park service’s land resource division.
The mandate to work with only willing sellers is part of the legislation that upgraded the Black Canyon of the Gunnison from a national monument to a national park in 1999.
“If we can’t reach a price agreement, we don’t acquire the property,” Miller said.
