When the Forest Service agreed to give developer Tom
Chapman 110 acres near the ski town of Telluride, Colo., in
exchange for his wilderness inholding on the Gunnison National
Forest, critics were outraged. They said taxpayers would lose
valuable public land while Chapman stood to gain a huge profit.
Apparently, the critics were right. Chapman, who engineered the
land swap after starting to build a luxury cabin in the West Elk
Wilderness, recently received $2.7 million for just 70 acres of
land. The Forest Service appraised the entire 110 acres at just
$640,000 (HCN, 5/2/94). Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D,
who called the land trade between Chapman and the Forest Service “a
blatant public fleecing,” said he’d ask for a “complete evaluation
of the way the Forest Service determines values in volatile real
estate markets’ such as Telluride. Forest Service officials, who
have for more than a year clung steadfastly to the claim their
appraisal was accurate, say they don’t know why Chapman made so
much money selling his Telluride property. “That’s a big difference
and we rarely see that,” says Forest Servivce land exchange
specialist Paul Zimmerman. “Our appraisal process is typical of
that used throughout the country. We may well have missed on this
one, but I don’t know.” Meanwhile, Chapman is asking $1.5 million
for the remaining 40-acre parcel he received from the agency.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wilderness trader cashes in.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
