Montana governor wants more parks

HELENA – For Montanans of ordinary means, parks and other public land may be as close as they get to owning recreation property in Big Sky Country, where wealthy outsiders pay jaw-dropping prices for scenic places to play.

Sellers of a southwestern Montana ranch with lakes and a private fish hatchery in a mountain setting are asking $20 million. Far to the north at Little Bitterroot Lake, a 14-acre parcel with some shoreline is listed at $2.9 million, and at fashionable Whitefish Lake, the asking price for just half an acre is $3.9 million.

It is against this backdrop that Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer wants to spend $15 million on land for addition to the state system of parks and waterfront sites. Schweitzer says now is the time to buy, before land prices shoot still higher. He sees expansion of state parkland as a gift to future generations.

“The value of Montana real estate is going up in very rapid multiples; we can afford it now, it’s a great investment and it’s what makes Montana different,” said the governor, who wants the Legislature to appropriate the $15 million from the projected state budget surplus of about $1 billion.

River rafting, fishing, hunting, motorized trail use and simply hiking are part of the huge outdoor recreation scene in a huge state that last year attracted about 10 million visitors. Many were drawn by crown jewel Glacier National Park and also camped, cast for trout or absorbed a bit of Montana history in the state system of 50 parks and 316 sites developed for fishing access.

To Schweitzer, a fisherman who recently spent about $2 million on lakeside property for his family and received a fly rod from wife, Nancy, for their 25th wedding anniversary, it is personally obvious that outdoor recreation here is surging.

“It’s getting pretty dang crowded on some of our rivers,” he said.

State park managers say the larger system of parks and fishing sites envisioned in the proposal called Access Montana would help disperse people, giving them a better outdoor experience and lightening the impact on some popular places.

Specific parcels have not been identified for purchase, but the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks envisions two or three new parks and “quite a few” additional sites for fishing access, parks director Joe Maurier said.

Places of interest include part of the Rocky Mountain Front south of Glacier, and Alberton Gorge northwest of Missoula, Maurier said. Fish, Wildlife and Parks already manages some land in the gorge, a water-sports mecca on the Clark Fork River. Some kayakers and rafters see expanded state control as a shield against property development.

“There’s constant pressure on any available land there and we’re trying to do everything we can to protect this for everybody,” Peter Dayton of the Missoula Whitewater Association said earlier this winter.

Schweitzer’s $15 million proposal went to a legislative subcommittee that recently questioned Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials about staffing new parks, and controlling the noxious knapweed and Dalmatian toadflax rampant on public and private lands. The subcommittee did not act on the park proposal immediately.

Republican Chairman Dave Kasten said enlarging the park system concerned him, but he had not made a decision about it.

“My first thought was, ‘I’m going to be cautious,’ ” said Kasten, a member of the Montana House.

The state infrastructure has a maintenance backlog, he said, the budget surplus is temporary and Montana could end up struggling to pay for the upkeep of more parks and fishing sites.

“I like to take care of what we already have,” Kasten said.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks has proposed designating $500,000 of the $15 million for “good neighbor” measures such as weed control and fencing. Staffing additional parks may not be immediate, Maurier said.

If legislators agree that now is the time to buy, he said, some lands could be acquired but their development as parks perhaps postponed. Rosebud Battlefield State Park, just east of the Crow Indian Reservation, was acquired in 1978 and mothballed. Now a management plan is being prepared.

Maurier said the pitch to the Legislature is that “we have an opportunity. Let’s make an investment now. Land will never be cheaper. Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park – we’re glad those people made those decisions” to protect land. “I see this as kind of the same thing.”

In Montana, the astonishing price escalation and the surge of newcomers establishing vacation homes have become a fact of life in the western part of the state. It’s quieter on the eastern plains, where rancher Kasten raises cattle.

“We see incredible growth occurring in the western portion of the state as people choose to live closer to mountains and open space, forests and other amenities,” said Deb Love, state director for The Trust for Public Land. Heightening concern about access to land are lockups by some new owners of big spreads who decide they don’t want the public there for hunting or other activities that Montana landowners traditionally have allowed, Love said.

“Montana is in the forefront for international and national buyers,” said Thomas Stevens, a real estate appraiser in Missoula. “Price doesn’t seem to be an object. If they find a place they like, generally they don’t need to get an appraisal and they don’t need to get underlying financing. They come with their own money. It’s hard to compete.”

Jim Taylor, manager of the multistate real estate agency Hall and Hall, was involved in Ted Turner’s 1989 purchase of the Flying D Ranch near Bozeman and sees Montana remaining a draw for the wealthy, some arriving on private jets and others on airliners as they come to look around.

Of Montana’s appeal Taylor said: “It’s the space. And people really like the communities. There are just a lot of nice communities that have decent people and a nice pace of life.”

If the state park system wants to buy, he said, “it’s probably a smart move to buy now. But that’s been true forever.”