Developer Thomas Chapman Profits By Threatening Prime Park Land, Now Challenges Obama

Wall Street Journal:

On behalf of his clients or his business partners, [Thomas Chapman] talks up plans to develop the parcels: a subdivision at a scenic overlook, an RV park on a canyon rim, a rustic estate inside a remote wilderness area. Sometimes he even brings out the bulldozers. Environmentalists sound the alarm. And often, the government or conservationists come with money...

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Littlewords]

02:01 PM on 10/04/2010

Article Extract:

But his muscular assertion of landowner rights is resonating in the West these days, as landowners warily await the administration's next move.

...the straight up way for the nation to deal with selfish right wing opportunists like this tool is to quickly and with prejudice apply eminent domain laws then simply remove the trash (both human and property assets on the land).

[chaapai]

12:45 PM on 10/04/2010

It's the basic tenet of Republikkant Party Politics: $crew everyone else as long as I have mine. Who cares about future generations? If your kids want clean water, let them drink it from a bottle. If they want health care: Then they should have been born to a rich, white, family. If they want safe food, Oh well... and if they want open spaces and parks, let them go to the Republikkkant run museum where they can see pictures of them and learn about creationism.
Who cares about the environment? It's here because G0d wants us to exploit it and get rich!
Hard to believe that we are soon to begin the second decade of the 21st century and yet we are still dealing with this kind of mindset and attitude. The Republic@n p@rty is an idea that is long past it's expiration date. The Rep's cry of "Me, me, me...!" or "That's mine, mine, mine!" is a mantra of evi! & @buse. This planet, & her resources are dwindling & we have a political party who's only concern is profit & greed. But when the water is gone, the soil tainted, the ice sheets melted, food is scarce, the ozone crapped out & the planet baked, their children will be suffering just as much as the liberals are. Their future is in as much peril as everyone else is. We must change, adapt, & work together. This man is a relic of the past who's time is over.

[thebigbike]

01:15 PM on 10/04/2010

The only thing you are not supposed to pass on to our descendants is something known as the "national debt" except when its incurred by repu-ugly kkkants never mind road construction, or infratstructure or education. if its for a useless war pass it on, but other than that chaapai has nailed it !

UNREGULATED FREE MARKET AT ITS --- well at one extreme or the other, I'd personally call it tending to worst.....

[HLL]

01:40 PM on 10/04/2010

F & F ~ Totally agree, chaapai. Beautiful post. 
"We must change, adapt and work together." Amen  ☮

[HLL]

12:35 PM on 10/04/2010

"It is vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature,
whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. 
Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams 
into sewers and dumping-grounds,
we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals—
not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements.
But at last it looks as if our people are awakening." 
 
~ Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. National Park Service quotes

[sensimilla]

12:12 PM on 10/04/2010

scumb4g selfish repub, I hope his house falls off the cliff with him in it.

[bridge to somewhere]

11:58 AM on 10/04/2010

Good-old short-sighted, money-lust pr!cks always willing to scr-ew over others to make their millions.

He's a text-book republican.

[jesthefaxman]

03:12 PM on 10/04/2010

Sounds more like Terry McAuliffe

[TeabaggersWorstNightmare]

11:49 AM on 10/04/2010

Anyone still clinging to the belief that republicans and teabaggers are anything but total sǝןoɥssɐ????

[YouDontWantMeHere]

10:50 AM on 10/04/2010

doubt they could sell them houses without them2

[YouDontWantMeHere]

10:50 AM on 10/04/2010

here's what i wanna know: where they gettin' the water and energy?

[JScott]

10:47 AM on 10/04/2010

One can only hope he goes into foreclosure with the current real estate recession on that 4800 sf mansion.

Often wonder for these parcels he develops is their off the grid util features-what about the elect. tel, and esp. the water?

[lvdragonlady]

10:36 AM on 10/04/2010

Any time you cut into a developers profits, they are going to do whatever they can to change that process. The last thing America needs right now is another developer building ((())). Who is going to buy what he is building, foreigners?
America has got to stop selling pieces of itself just so some greedy developer can make a profit.

[lizipoo]

06:05 AM on 10/04/2010

It's been said that you can steal more money with a briefcase than a g-u-n.   This guy is working that premise to the hilt.  

I would wager he might have worked for or around a County Assessors Office where all the old land records are easily perused for land of this type plus old land splits and rezoning that may have future value.  He wouldn't be alone in that venture.   There used to be a word for doing business like this but I doubt it would get past the mods.   lol

 

[rksnj67]

10:01 AM on 10/04/2010

F&F! I love that saying!

[hottpotat0]

09:53 PM on 10/03/2010

two words for him IMMINENT DOMAIN that is all the gov't has to do-his 4,00 sq ft home would make a nice lodge /ranger station for the parks service-heli pad essential :^) good fun

[hottpotat0]

09:56 PM on 10/03/2010

5,000 sqft home that is

[A Meat Beetle]

07:27 PM on 10/03/2010

Well, if the government can't stop people like this, then it's up to citizens with monkey wrenches to do it. 

[parlimentMike]

12:52 AM on 10/04/2010

In Phoenix a few years ago, houses under construction on the edge of a park kept burning. The government should try to avoid that kind of provocation.

[snowballinhell]

01:24 AM on 10/04/2010

Here is what GW Bush wanted to do as governor of the State of Texas:
http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/State_Parks.html
privatize all our state parks and place concessions inside them for lodges, restaurants and other such facilities. I have seen a hot dog stand in Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. How natural is that? http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/enchanted_rock

Not surprising President Bush wanted the same for National Parks.

[jesthefaxman]

03:09 PM on 10/04/2010

Where in the park did you see the hot dog stand? I camp there twice a year for the last decade and know the park intimately. The drought was so bad last year that there were no fires allowed, so I would not be surprised to see some sort of hot food vending happening by the ranger station during winter camping, but the station is right at the entrance to the park. When you say Natural Area, you imply that a vendor is setting up in the unimproved camping area.

I'd be real interested in where you saw this and when.

[Cambridge9]

07:11 PM on 10/03/2010

The Bush Interior Dept wanted to lease out land on Federal Parklands to oil companies to drill.  I remember the story about a young man who placed himself in jeopardy of jail time when he won a bid on land that he knew he couldn't pay.   But it put a hold to any possible development of the land and brought the public's attention to what the administration was trying to do to areas adjacent to Federal Parks. 

Beaches are supposed to be public, but because of the development of ocean front property it is becoming more and more difficult to gain access to the ocean and beaches.  Now it's pristine lands which, once desecrated, can never be returned to it's original beauty which are in jeopardy.   

If conservationists were willing to protect certain lands by living on them I would have no problem with that.  But to willingly desecrate these lands in order to make a profit  - and not care about the consequences after that profit is made, is unforgivable. 

[snowballinhell]

01:38 AM on 10/04/2010

ANWR

[Y3rMawm]

05:34 PM on 10/03/2010

Mr. Chapman, as a private property owner, now has a vested interest in maintaining the value of his land, most which is due to the natural beauty of the surrounding environment. This means Mr. Chapman is now in investor in maintaining that beauty in order to maintain the value of the land.

Anyone who disagrees with his position, should consider government handling at various levels, of the rest of the Colorado River watershed, the Owens River, and just about every river along the western divide of the Sierra Nevada, including, but not limited to the Tuolumne River through Hetch Hetchy Valley...cough...reservoir.

You are free buy the land and preserve it with your own money.

[pecosdog]

12:04 AM on 10/04/2010

You give him a certain glow when, in reality, he is just a professional extortionist. He has played this game for years and in many places. He needs to be dealt with. He is slime.

[snowballinhell]

01:30 AM on 10/04/2010

Actually people like him are a dime a dozen. More of them than the Eco Barons who have busily bought up so much of Chile and Argentina. Ted Turner has tried as hard as he can to buy land and set it aside. Still, adding such spreads plus the federal lands still isn't enought to preserve the environment. This land is our land, this land is your land, but it isn't all our land. It's just a sliver.

[sgmorr]

01:22 PM on 10/04/2010

Brings to mind a little heard verse of "This Land is Your Land."

"As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!"

----Woody Guthrie