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Tom Chapman, one of Colorado's leading land speculators, is at it again. His specialty is realty extortion, and it works like this:
He buys an in-holding -- a parcel of land like an old patented mining claim that sits inside, or next to, a wilderness area or national park or monument.
Then he threatens to build on the parcel, and to make the threats credible, he may deploy the bulldozers or start to ferry in construction supplies and crews by helicopter.
An outcry follows about how he is destroying wilderness values or marring the vistas of a national monument. Responding to public pressure, the federal government offers to trade land of equal value.
Thus the in-holding gets protected from Chapman's development, and Chapman acquires a parcel he can sell for big money.
For instance, in 1989 he and a partner bought 240 acres inside the West Elk Wilderness near Paonia for $240,000. For two years, Chapman threatened to build a cabin (and sue for road access) unless the Forest Service bought him out for $1.32 million.
The Forest Service wouldn't. Chapman bought out his partner and began flying in logs for the cabin he planned. Public outrage grew -- even the local Republican county chairman was appalled -- and the Forest Service cut a deal.
It valued Chapman's land at $640,000 and offered a
parcel of comparable worth
-- 105 acres on the edge
of Telluride, which Chapman then sold for $4.2 million.
Chapman has made similar deals with land near Black Canyon National Monument and the Gunnison Gorge, and he's picked up some mining claims inside the Spanish Peaks wilderness study area.
In essence, Chapman finds private land that the public wants protected from development. Then he threatens to develop it unless the public pays up, and he comes out ahead financially.
Currently, he's got at least a dozen exclusive homesites for sale in the Fossil Ridge, Weminuche and Holy Cross wilderness areas.
This has alarmed many people, who keep insisting that something be done to stop Chapman before he starts selling $8 million castles in the middle of wilderness areas.
But there's a paradox here. The more public pressure there is to buy the in-holdings from Chapman, the higher the price he is likely to command. Shrill and loud protests from environmentalists and back-packers thus work to Chapman's financial benefit -- something he seems to have figured out, even if the protesters haven't.
Besides, why bother with the protests and agitation when there are other ways to deal with Chapman:
1) Lately there's been a lot of talk, and even some action, about re-introducing species that were once native to Colorado.
Wouldn't the wilderness areas around Chapman's parcels be excellent zones for new populations of wolves, grizzly bears and wolverines?
2) According to Chapman's realty brochures, his sites are accessible only by helicopter. It's illegal to land a helicopter in a wilderness area, but it's legal to fly over wilderness to reach a private landing site.
Colorado counties have zoning powers -- it seems logical that some county could restrict the locations of helipads.
Chapman might argue that this is a takings,
but
his clients could still carry building supplies to their
property by pack animals, which can go just about anywhere.
This would provide employment to local outfitters and help
to preserve our traditional rural Western way of life.
3) If banning remote heliports doesn't hold up in court, Chapman should be required to disclose certain facts to potential purchasers of his real estate.
One such fact is that in the boondocks of Colorado, many residents believe that any helicopters they see have been dispatched from United Nations headquarters to search for World Heritage Sites that will cause the enslavement of the population.
Another fact is that these anti-helicopter residents tend to be strong believers in the Second Amendment and thus boast formidable private arsenals.
If the rag-tag Vietcong could bring down hundreds of American military helicopters during that war, then it stands to reason that well armed Coloradans could enjoy even more success against civilian helicopters whirring suspiciously over the back country.
All it would take is a whispered rumor or two in some roadhouse or greasy-spoon, and in the unlikely event that the chopper assailant was identified and arrested, what Colorado jury would convict a fellow citizen who made an honest mistake when he was only trying to protect his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness from the invading aircraft of the New World Order?
As a responsible citizen, I wouldn't dream of starting such rumors myself. But I do think it's clear by now that there are a lot of ways to deal with Tom Chapman's threats that don't involve making him any richer.
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