Interior weighs trading a Yosemite strip so Kingsbarn can build a private road

The Interior Department has spent more than a year looking at a land exchange that would hand a short strip inside Yosemite National Park to a company controlled by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, so the firm can build a private road from land it owns just outside the western boundary. NOTUS first reported the talks. The New York Times reviewed documents sent to Congress this year that describe the swap.

Kingsbarn bought two 40-acre parcels in early 2024 for $4 million through a limited liability company called Sanctuary at Yosemite. Chief executive Jeff Pori wants a short road from that ground onto a central park route. In return, the documents say, the company would buy land of equal value near Yosemite or elsewhere in California and give it to the National Park Service.

Aubrie Spady, an Interior spokeswoman, said on Friday that "no final decisions have been made." If a proposal moves, she said, the department would follow procedures for coordination, transparency and public involvement. She denied that the department is secretly working a deal under political pressure.

The road that courts already refused

The previous owner of the outside parcels spent two decades asking for the same access. The Park Service said no. Federal courts said the owner had no right to a new road across park land. That history is why former Yosemite superintendent Don Neubacher called the revival "so ridiculous, it makes you sick." He sits on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks.

Yosemite is the fifth-most-visited U.S. national park. The western boundary near the proposed strip is not the Tunnel View postcard. It is still inside the line Congress drew. A road built for one private development would be a permanent cut in that line, even if the acreage is small and even if replacement land is offered somewhere else in California.

Campaign-finance records cited by the Times show Pori made regular small donations to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign totalling more than $4,000. That sum is not a purchase of a park. It is part of why critics read the file as access for a friendly developer rather than a routine boundary cleanup.

How an exchange would have to work

Federal land swaps are not handshake deals. They need appraisals, environmental review and, in many cases, legislation or a specific statutory hook. Spady's statement leaves that door open and denies a secret close. Two former Park Service officials told the Times that political appointees at Interior have called the Yosemite exchange a priority for more than a year. They asked not to be named.

Bobby McEnaney of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the episode matches warnings that the administration would treat public land as inventory. The counter-argument from a developer is simple: the park would gain acres, the inholding would gain a legal driveway, and the public would still own the valley. The missing piece in that argument is the precedent. Once a private road is cut through Yosemite for one LLC, the next owner of the next edge parcel has a map to point at.

The documents are in Congress. The decision, Spady said, is not made. Until it is, the only new fact is that a request the Park Service and the courts buried is back on an Interior desk.