Park Service signs preliminary Yosemite land swap for private resort road

Critics call the exchange a dangerous precedent for protected lands

The National Park Service has signed a preliminary agreement to swap roughly one acre on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park for property owned by a Las Vegas developer who wants to build a short road into the park from his adjacent ranch. Under the arrangement, the federal government would give developer Jeff Pori a parcel on the park’s edge so guests at a rustic resort he is planning would not have to drive about 45 minutes along winding dirt roads to reach Yosemite’s main entrance.

Pori, through his real-estate firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital, purchased the 83-acre Hazel Green Ranch in 2024, an undeveloped stretch of meadowland just outside the park’s boundary. He plans to build a 150-room lodge and cabins scattered around the meadow’s perimeter. The naturalist John Muir wrote about visiting the “charming spot” during his 1869 excursion through the Sierra Nevada.

For the resort to function, Pori needs a 700-foot-long road across federal land connecting his property to Big Oak Flat Road, the main route into the park. Pori said he first asked Yosemite officials two years ago for an easement and was told no. He and his attorney, Lanny Davis, then met last year with Interior Department officials, who proposed a land exchange as a possible solution.

The preliminary agreement calls for Pori to transfer to the Park Service a piece of property of similar value located elsewhere in California. Pori said his project would add needed lodging to a popular park. “I remember a lot of hiking and a lot of streams and rivers around there,” he said, recalling childhood camping trips in Yosemite. “It’s just like heaven, really.”

News of the proposed exchange has drawn fierce opposition. Cicely Muldoon, a former superintendent of Yosemite, said the swap would set a dangerous precedent by signaling that protected natural spaces can be bartered away to private interests. “It’s not a piece of land that you use for real-estate transactions,” Muldoon said.

Ed Stierli, vice president of government affairs for the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association, said land exchanges have historically been used only to expand the boundaries of federal parkland. “Now they’re using that same authority to break off pieces of the park to benefit a private developer,” Stierli said.

Davis said he received so many threatening notes that he hit his iPhone’s limit for blocking email addresses. Davis defended the process. “We went through the system as it’s designed to be used,” he said. “Checked the boxes to get it done legally.”

Critics have pointed to Pori’s political contributions, which total $4,700, to Republican campaigns and candidates including President Trump, as evidence that his request may have received special consideration. The Interior Department’s press office said there was no political pressure to reach a predetermined outcome. Pori and Davis said they never sought political favors.

The Yosemite proposal comes as the Trump administration has pursued other land exchanges involving protected federal land. Last year, the administration formed a task force to identify federal land that could be used for affordable housing. Administration officials also considered a Major League Baseball request to host a game at a national park, possibly Grand Teton in Wyoming. In a letter to local officials sent earlier this month, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league won’t pursue the idea due to opposition from the local community.

Federal agencies are pursuing other proposed land exchanges. In Texas, a federal judge recently allowed a proposed swap between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to proceed. In Georgia, the National Park Service has signed preliminary agreements to give federal land on Cumberland Island, a federally protected barrier island wilderness, to two private landowners in exchange for privately owned parcels in ecologically sensitive areas.

Some land exchanges involving national parks have happened over the years. An agreement allowed a public utility to operate in the Everglades, and another swap let the U.S. Virgin Islands build a public school on a parcel of Virgin Islands National Park on St. John. Conservationists distinguish those deals, which they say expanded park access for the public, from the Yosemite proposal, which they describe as breaking parkland off for a private business.

Pori faces a long process even if the exchange moves forward. He acknowledged that he bought the property with no assurance of approval. “I bought this with absolutely no guarantee,” Pori said. “I knew that going in.” He is friends and business partners with Russell Geyser, the son of Hazel Green Ranch’s previous owner, Lewis Geyser, who previously lost a five-year legal battle over the same issue.