The Ameya Preserve

PART I: Luxury Development, Conservation and Class Conflict

Fifty miles north of Yellowstone National Park in Montana’s aptly named Paradise Valley, an ambitious North Dakota native and Wall Street millionaire named Wade Dokken is planning a unique luxury home community called the Ameya Preserve.

Unlike its brethren around the Rocky Mountain West, the Ameya Preserve will have no fancy golf course, no private ski hill, no Prada boutiques or mega-mansions behind high walls. Instead, there will be lots of wildlife, open space, energy efficient houses, and a host of cultural amenities of a decidedly high-brow ilk.

Dokken makes a rather bold claim: “I’m not a developer,” he says. “I’m a conservationist.”

He touts his credentials as a liberal Democrat and says the 300-plus-home Ameya Preserve, set on 9,500 acres of pristine ranch land, will be nothing less than "the most sustainable community ever built."

In crucial respects, though, the Ameya Preserve project shares a great deal with other ultra-luxury developments in Montana and around the region. It promises to be an economic engine for the town of Livingston and surrounding Park County, just as the Yellowstone Club in nearby Big Sky has driven the economy of Gallatin County. It's being marketed to wealthy people around the world who will likely spend only a few months or weeks a year there (a single lot at Ameya was the most expensive gift in this year's Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog at a cool $2.3 million).

Ameya has also spurred emotional opposition from many locals. Some are upset at what they regard as misleading and hypocritical promises about conservation. Others are opposed to the proposed sale to Ameya of state lands that lie within the property. Still others decry the very idea of such a development taking place in the midst of rich wildlife habitat. But at the heart of the matter are complex and conflicted feelings about what kind of place Montana is, what it is becoming, and who is bringing the change.

Dokken himself publicly put his finger on the issue, declaring in a letter to the Livingston Enterprise that opponents of his project were suffering from "class envy." It was a foolish thing to say, and he has since apologized. But while one could debate how much "envy" has to do with it, the fight over the Ameya Preserve is certainly in part about "class."

Like much of Montana, Park County has sublime scenery but an underdeveloped economy — and most people don't have a big problem with rich people moving in and helping everyone make money (as long as they're not rude and condescending). At the same time, though, the locals resent it when "outsiders" fence off land where they had once hunted, or ruin their views, or change the culture of their communities.

More than most of America, Montana has an egalitarian spirit; long, cold winters and low wages create a certain camaraderie. There is a powerful pride of place, and nowhere more so than in the old railroad town and Western writers haunt of Livingston. Something like Ameya Preserve just seems too big, too different, too foreign, too wealthy, too pretentious — in short, out-of-place, a prospective enclave of very rich people who are from a different class, and who might as well be from a different planet.

"My fear is, Paradise Valley is going to be turned into one great big development area," says local rancher and Park County Commissioner Jim Durgan. "There aren't many neighbors left. Let's put it that way."

Wade Dokken himself is much less the outsider than those who will buy homes at Ameya Preserve. He grew up in the cattle country of North Dakota. His father worked for a time as a miner in Butte, and Dokken spent many summers in Montana. He went to the University of North Dakota and later got a job as a stock broker at Paine Webber in Minneapolis.

Dokken was evidently very good at his job, and he eventually joined American Skandia, the money-management arm of a Swedish insurance company. By 2000, he had worked his way up to chief executive of the company. When he left in 2003 (after a scandal at the parent company forced the sale of American Skandia) he was a wealthy man and ready to return to the West.

Dokken is a commanding presence, tall and hefty with a groomed goatee and feathered hair. His speech is matter-of-fact, but he can be quite engaging, and is also given to a certain grandiosity: He describes the Ameya Preserve property, formerly the Bullis Creek Ranch, as “arguably the most important land in the lower 48 to conserve.” In planning the development, Dokken says he and his partners “created a new way to live.”

Unlike many a Wall Street mogul, Dokken’s politics are decidedly liberal. He describes himself as “an FDR-Truman-Kennedy-Johnson-Humphrey-McGovern-Carter-Clinton Democrat.” He often casts Ameya Preserve in distinctly political terms.

Environmental protection is one pole of that political philosophy, and free-market capitalism is the other.

In a May 2007 vision letter, Dokken emphasized his and his partners’ high-minded goals: “Throughout our previous careers, we gave time and money to conservation and other worthy causes. That commitment is now our first order of business…Our core mission is to use limited, very carefully designed development as a funding source to save substantial and important land and wildlife…And, as we have undertaken to create amenities that are inherent to our green values, we are harnessing the power of private capital for public good — philanthropy, the arts, the sciences, the humanities and our shared environment.”

On a September 2007 visit to his property, Dokken elaborated on his motivation for creating the Ameya Preserve.

“I was trying to find a free-market alternative that exists for conservation goals,” Dokken told NewWest.Net. “I wanted something that had very high environmental values that justified an investment.”

Dokken and his two primary partners, brother-in-law Jaime Prieto and Stan Feagler, are all new to the development world. Prieto spent more than two decades in the marketing business, orchestrating public images for such brands as Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods and eventually serving as worldwide director for the Motorola account at marketing powerhouse Ogilvy & Mather.

Stan Feagler spent 17 years at the luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent, working his way up to CFO, and met Dokken when the Ameya project was in its infancy. Prieto and Feagler both moved their families to Montana soon after Dokken purchased his property.

Dokken’s sister Lisa — whose husband is Jamie Prieto — describes her brother as very gregarious and deeply committed to both conservation and social work, and she says both passions led to the project.

“It’s just kind of a culmination of things for him,” Lisa Dokken explains. “To be able to build and create something that he thinks is incredibly worthwhile for the better cause, to be able to do something that is out in the forefront, cutting-edge of environmental stuff. But also to create an economic model that could be successful while also taking that and sharing a large chunk of it with the broader community of Livingston and within the issues of conservation and poverty alleviation."

Wade Dokken's political liberalism, though, is not doctrinaire. He broke ranks with his party in 2000 when he penned New Century New Deal: How to Turn Your Wages into Wealth through Social Security Choice. In the book, Dokken argues for the privatization of social security by allowing Americans to voluntarily invest in private accounts (a policy that would, not incidentally, be enormously beneficial to money management firms like American Skandia).

Dokken described privatization as “a golden opportunity to appeal to the dreams and aspirations of the new investor class" and wrote in his book, "The liberal leadership and left-wing allies of my party have always preferred welfare over wealth creation and anti-Wall Street populism to new investor class pragmatism.”

Dokken’s bootstraps-by-portfolio view on social security is similar to his view on conservation. During Dokken’s tenure on the board of directors of the Connecticut Nature Conservancy he read Dutch author Bjorn Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg’s work is widely criticized in the scientific community, and though Dokken does not support all of Lomborg’s assertions, he found inspiration for his new mission in Lomborg’s words.

“I disagree with most of the book,” Dokken says, “but the basic insight is there are free market ways to do more leverageable things."

At Ameya Preserve, the selling point for the buyers will be beauty and sustainability on the one hand and culture on the other.

Dokken says he'll put 8,000 of the 9,500 acres he owns into a conservation easement. He is spending heavily on environmental studies and sophisticated land planning to minimize impacts on wildlife and the environment.

Ameya is also partnering with heavy-hitting environmental organizations and programs; Larry Selzer and the Conservation Fund will enroll Ameya in their “Go Zero” campaign to “offset all of the CO2 generation for all families of Ameya Preserve during their entire lifetimes” through tree planting, and Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute will guide the green building practices at Ameya to create signature Ameya green-building guidelines “that will encourage (but not force) residents to make their homes as green as possible.”

Dokken has pledged $75,000 to the Yellowstone Business Partnership to help fund the organization’s Framework for Sustainable Development, which will grade developments’ environmental efforts on a broad range of criteria.

And then there are the cultural celebrities. Alice Waters, the Berkeley-based chef and leader of the Slow Food Movement, will help direct a private restaurant at Ameya (which the Wall Street Journal reported, is in exchange for a $100,000 donation to the Slow Food organization and $400,000 paid directly to Waters in an unsigned contract). Jack Horner, the famed Jurassic Park paleontologist from nearby Montana State University, will lead dinosaur digs (Dokken gave $3.2 million to Horner's institution, the Museum of the Rockies, which subsequently changed Horner’s title to the Ameya Preserve Curator of Paleontology).

The list goes on: the Montalvo Artist Residency will help choose artists for Ameya’s in-house artist-in-residence program. Washington Mall Peace Museum designers Christopher Chadbourne & Associates will design Ameya’s nature center. Toronto Symphony conductor Peter Oundjian will help form the Ameya music program. United States Fly Rod & Reel “Angler of the Year” Craig Matthews will lead an Ameya Fly-Fishing Academy.

And no cultural community would be complete without a visit from poet Maya Angelou, who agreed to speak annually on the writing process to Ameya residents.

On the sales end, meanwhile, luxury real estate specialists Sotheby’s Realty and Synthesis Realty are busy selling Ameya to potential buyers all over the United States (though neither would discuss the project on the record).

Yet despite all of this — or perhaps, in part, because of it — Dokken's plans are more than a little controversial in Livingston and surrounding Park County.

Park County Commissioner Jim Durgan, who grew up and still ranches on his grandfather’s Paradise Valley ranch, attended a barbecue that Dokken threw shortly after he purchased the property in 2005. Durgan and others say Dokken made an emotional speech proclaiming his intent to protect the vast majority of the property and allow public access. Durgan was encouraged by the idea of a property owner protecting what he describes as “a very special spot in our valley.”

But what Durgan has seen is not what he expected.

“When he first came in, the proposals sounded pretty good,” Durgan says. “He seems to have changed his mind.”

Livingston ecologist Pete Feigley has mounted an aggressive campaign against the Ameya Preserve, calling it "a frivolous waste of resources" and arguing that the developers’ main environmental claims are inconsistent, misleading and false.

“Ameya Preserve is a luxury resort community that will consist of second homes, or third or fourth,” Feigley says. “Luxury second homes are by definition unnecessary. Consequently, they represent a waste of resources rather than a conservation of resources.”

A local hunting and fishing club pointedly turned down Dokken's offer of permits to bow hunt on the property, saying the gesture toward public access — always a hot-button issue — was mere tokenism.

There is no zoning in Park County, and ultimately Dokken will likely be able to develop his land however he likes. He says — quite rightly — he is going far beyond what is required, whether it be extensive environmental studies on the property or donations to local organizations and schools. Ameya has received preliminary plat approval — the first stage of a subdivision — and some construction on infrastructure is already underway, though the developers have not yet submitted a final plat application. But there are two things that could get in the way. One is an unresolved issue regarding two sections of state land that lie within the proposed development, and whose purchase would appear to be critical to the project. Dokken expects to buy them as part of a state land sale program, but the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has come under fire for doing an inadequate analysis of the proposed sale. It remains in limbo pending the release of a revised environmental assessment.

The second potential obstacle is more ephemeral, but equally important: if Dokken is viewed as an arrogant exploiter of the land, rather than a sincere conservationist, it will undermine the commercial premise of the development. The type of people who would be impressed by Alice Waters presumably don't want to be viewed as hypocritical greenwashers — and in fact Alice Waters herself is already taking some flack for her involvement. And nobody, least of all someone who has spent millions for the "emotional experience” of a culture-rich second home community, wants to be viewed as a pariah by the locals.

Dokken, by positioning the Ameya Preserve as a conservation development, has invited a lot of extra scrutiny. Now he's getting it.

PART II: The Rural Subdivision, Deluxe

For all the talk surrounding the Ameya Preserve, the new luxury development in Montana's Paradise Valley, the project is only in its initial stages and little is formally finalized. Developer Wade Dokken and his team received preliminary plat approval for Phase One in 2006 but have yet to submit a final plat application. As it stands, Phase One will consist of 203 acres and will include 59 homesites as well as a central village area with 35,000 square feet of community buildings including a main lodge, a nature center, an arts center, a children’s barn and a chapel.

There are no details yet on any of the other phases, which the developers indicate will bring about 250 more homes to the property. The future of two sections of state land within Ameya property remains unresolved, and no land has yet been put into a conservation easement.

An extensive design and planning process, which Ameya developers say sets it apart from other large rural developments, is well underway. Two Colorado-based businesses, Design Workshop and Michael Claffey Ecological Consulting, have produced plans going well beyond what's required of a Montana subdivision.

Kristofer Johnson of Design Workshop wrote of Ameya, “This is a genuine engagement to bring an understanding of the land from the very beginning … The quality and integrity of maintaining Ameya’s ecological systems takes priority over the home sites, not the other way around.”

Ameya’s Phase One plat application indicates that extensive science and planning went into the placement of every homesite, with particular attention to mitigating impacts on the 50-plus species of wildlife living on Ameya property.

“Wildlife habitat impact reduction was and remains a prime consideration of the Ameya Preserve,” the application states. “One of the main marketing tools for the development includes the wildlife present on the ranch and surrounding habitats along with the concept of wildlife habitat preservation.”

Dokken and his team have said they will mitigate effects to wildlife by only developing 500 of their acres, but initial planning estimates and a map submitted to the Park County Planning Office indicate four phases of development that would have to be on more than 1,000 acres. The uncertainty is creating some tension between the developers and the Park County Planning Office.

“There are a lot of discrepancies regarding the proposed [Ameya] subdivision that we come across that are usually between what is submitted to our office and what is advertised in the media and other publications,” Park County Planner Mike Inman says.

The Phase One application goes so far as to break down the development’s overall disturbance to the vegetative community: 51.96 acres of coniferous forest (25.5 percent of total coniferous); 44.94 acres of aspen (22.1 percent of total); 84.02 acres of non-forest vegetation (41.3 percent of total); and 11.23 acres of deciduous shrubland (54.8 percent of the total). The developers also say lot boundaries will avoid habitats and maintain movement corridors, while simultaneously ensuring “all lots will border preserve land and offer expansive views.”

Design Workshop used a sophisticated “data-atlasing process” to map the topography, vegetation, wind, wildlife, and water. Heather Henry of Design Workshop says an initial directive from Dokken set the course for the work.

“This became unique in the attitude to set the land as the highest priority in the development process,” Henry says. “You name it, we really needed to understand how it would work.”

Design Workshop formed four categories or “paths” for their data-atlasing process: natural resources, human comfort, development and infrastructure. Each path took several factors into account. For example, the natural resource path included water for wildlife, vegetative communities, wildlife patterns for five indicator species, slope, habitat cover and the viewshed from the Paradise Valley floor.

People and wildlife tend to gravitate toward similar habitat, and the development plans will put homes “on the edge of open aspen stands” (Aspen forests are critical but troubled wildlife habitats in the West). Henry acknowledged the challenge:

“There is generally, not always, a conflict where the best land for development is also the highest quality for wildlife,” Henry said. “There was a high level of challenge, but with the mapping and the process we put together we were able to put together a balance. Conflict [between humans and wildlife] in general is the highest level of challenge for a project like this. The two indeed do and must go together to save and preserve the high priority natural resource preservation land.”

Jim Barrett, director of the Park County Environmental Council, makes it a point to pore over subdivision applications in Livingston and Park County, and Barrett says Ameya’s Phase One is head and shoulders above any rural development plan in the county.

“I was kind of blown away [by the initial proposal],” Barrett says. “We’re used to someone coming in with a not very imaginative or creative proposal…It’s not perfect, but if we were to write the handbook on smart growth development on a rural property being sensitive to the history of the area, sensitive to the culture, sensitive to wildlife, viewsheds and open space, when he presented it to us that’s basically what it was.”

Craig Kenworthy, the senior director of conservation for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC received an undisclosed “small” donation from Dokken), agrees that Ameya’s Phase One is unprecedented in conservation efforts for large subdivisions in Park County.

“In terms of a development where they set goals for being environmentally responsible on a large scale, this is the most sensitive one,” Kenworthy says “That said, if you’re going to put that many houses in there … you’re always going to have an impact on wildlife.”

Dokken's efforts on the design side have been paired with philanthropic efforts in the community. He pledged to build a Habitat for Humanity house for every 50 houses sold at Ameya, offered to fund two advanced placement teachers at Park High School to help build an “International Baccalaureate Program,” donated $50,000 to the Park County Rural Fire District and also donated 200 acres of land on the Paradise Valley floor to Livingston-based Farms for Families, which will oversee a local, organic farming program there.

Dokken also promises a $1 million endowment with a matching program for Ameya residents to help with “the unmet social needs of the local rural community.” The developers say, “Potentially, up to 10 percent of the revenue [from Ameya sales] will be dedicated to stewardship, community outreach, philanthropy and other charitable activities.” Previous Ameya documents indicated “Ameya Preserve is dedicating approximately 15 percent of gross revenues to philanthropy. This should exceed $75 million in the lifetime of our vision.” Other material indicates a Community Stewardship Organization “will assess a 0.5 percent transfer fee on all real estate sales to fund a foundation” initially endowed with $2 million in contributions linked to homesite sales.

Ameya material also consistently lists numbers for the property taxes Ameya will produce — $5 million every year for Park County schools, according to Dokken.

All the philanthropy, of course, can be viewed — at least in part — as an effort to win friends and influence people. On more than one occasion, the developers publicized “partnerships” with local organizations without formal agreements. When an Ameya newspaper advertisement declared the Livingston-based Corporation for the Northern Rockies (CNR) as a partner, CNR Executive Director Lill Erickson responded with a letter to the editor.

Erickson wrote, “I read with surprise in Friday’s paper that the Corporation for the Northern Rockies (CNR) was listed as a partner with the Ameya Preserve in their full-page ad. CNR has no formal relationship with the Ameya Preserve, nor do we endorse the project.”

All the conscientious planning, moreover, does not change the fact that the Ameya Preserve is a major development in the middle of major wildlife habitat and is well removed from existing infrastructure. By some measures, this would preclude the project from truly being “green.”

“Their idea of conserving a piece of land and mine are different,” says Park County Commissioner Jim Durgan. “I’ve lived out in the valley and I’ve seen so many changes … It appears to us that he is in the process of creating a gated community, but he doesn’t have anything to sell but the view. The culture that’s there and that western view that everybody thinks they know so well, that’s being destroyed. They’re destroying the very thing that brought them out here. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

And then there is the tricky issue of the state sections and the related issue of public access. The potential sale of the state land to Ameya has become the focal point for critics of the project. Public lands, once viewed as a burden by many rural Western communities, are now considered an invaluable asset — and not one to be sold to developers.

PART III: Montana State Land for Sale

One of the most critical and controversial issues surrounding the Ameya Preserve is the potential sale of two state sections of land isolated within Ameya property. As in much of the West, a lot of property around Livingston is owned in the checkerboard legacy of the railroad land grants, and there are numerous situations where state or federal land is completely surrounded by private property.

In 2003, the Montana Legislature initiated the Montana Land Banking Program, partly to deal with this sort of issue. The intent of the program, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC), is “for the state to dispose of tracts of land that generally do not have legal access, generate substantially less income for the trust than their relative value or are difficult for the Department to manage, and to purchase replacement property with legal access, potential for increased Trust revenue and consequently is more efficient to manage.” The program was recently extended in the Montana Legislature until October 2011.

Over the last two years the land banking program generated $10,669,498 in sales revenue from 19,189 acres sold in Montana, while the state spent just over $9 million acquiring 24,294 acres. The estimated annual income from lands purchased between July 2006 and July 2007 was around $154,000. The actual income from lands sold was about $25,000.

State Sections 18 and 20 in Township 03 South, Range 09 East comprise 1,270 acres, and future phases of development at Ameya hinge on the acquisition of these sections. Land eligible for the land banking program must first go through an environmental review before going to the Montana Land Board for a vote. The lands are open to a public auction, although property owners with land surrounding sections for sale have the first bid and a chance to match any leading bid.

Dokken is pledging to protect about 900 acres in the two sections while developing about 300 acres. If he is not able to purchase the sections, Dokken says it is the environment that will suffer.

“We will have to find a different, and frankly, less environmentally friendly location for some of our home sites [if unable to purchase the sections],” the developers say. “We will also have to find a new area to put a secondary access road, which would actually have a greater impact on the elk. But if we decide not to purchase the state land, it will not stop our plans for Ameya Preserve, only change them, although not necessarily for the better environmentally.”

In August 2006, the DNRC released an environmental assessment (EA) on the potential sale of Sections 18 and 20. The EA was widely criticized as inadequate for lacking significant public input and for not taking into account the public value of the elk winter range traversing the two parcels and other natural resource values. This prompted DNRC to go back to the drawing board to create a new alternative that included deed restrictions limiting development on the two sections.

On July 19, 2007, the Park County Commission held a public meeting with the Park County Planning Office. Wade Dokken and Ameya’s legal counsel, Joby Sabol II, also attended. At the meeting Park County Land Use Planner Mike Inman said his planning department had serious concerns over the sale — concerns which were not addressed in the EA.

“We see potential conflicts with what the state is proposing as a sale,” Inman told the commissioners. “…The development seems to contradict the vision and goals of Ameya itself.”

Inman cited geologic fault lines running directly through the state sections, steep, forested chutes that can become “fire ladders” in the event of a wildfire and the potential for flooding from the 25 acres of ponds the developers plan to create. Knowing all this, Inman said he had difficulty understanding how the DNRC wrote under “Human Health and Safety” in the EA, “No impacts to human health and safety would occur as a result of the proposal.”

“This puts us and potential developers in conflict right off the bat,” Inman said.

Inman also referenced a recent statement made by Mary Sexton, director of the Montana DNRC, indicating counties in the state could be penalized for allowing development in the wildland urban interface, which is expensive and dangerous to defend from wildfires.

After Inman’s testimony, Sabol — visibly upset — called Inman’s testimony “off-point” and said the planners appeared to be “confused.” Sabol said the DNRC was only examining the sale, not potential development. Still, Inman contented, he did not see how the planning office could in good faith not comment on environmental and human health and safety issues concerning the sale of state lands to a developer intending to put homes on the property.

Jim Barrett, of the Park County Environmental Council, referenced the Montana Environmental Policy Act — which the land sale must comply with — and recommended the DNRC provide a “reasonable range of alternatives.” In the original EA, the DNRC only proposed two options: sell or don’t sell.

The Ameya team left the meeting frustrated with the commissioners and planning office, and the commissioners left frustrated with the developers and the DNRC. The meeting was the first confrontation between the developers and the county over the land sale and proved to be symbolic of what the relationship between the Ameya team and many Park County locals has become.

DNRC first published a scoping notice soliciting public comment on the proposed sale of Sections 18 and 20 in a square-inch block of copy in the classifieds of the Livingston Enterprise on March 24, 2006 and announced the proposed land sale. The comment period would close in just over two weeks on April 10, 2006. Many said the placement of the ad and length of the comment period were an insufficient scoping effort. On several other land sales through the program, the DNRC published scoping announcements in multiple papers and allowed comment periods of 30 days.

On April 6, 2006, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP) Wildlife Biologist Tom Lemke submitted a letter to the DNRC emphasizing the wildlife value of the state sections, especially the elk winter range on Section 18. Lemke was involved in the planning process for Phase One and has consistently told the developers that the Bullis Creek drainage is not the best place for development when considering impacts on wildlife.

“We are still maintaining that the long-term approach on the subdivision — from a wildlife perspective — is not very prudent,” Lemke says. “We’re concerned that when you throw that many people and homes on the landscape — regardless of how it’s designed — there is a high potential for wildlife conflict. You are, in effect, turning an amenity into a liability.”

Lemke calls the Bullis Creek drainage — where the majority of Phase One will be — “one of the most diverse wildlife habitats on the whole ranch.” He argues it would be better to shift the development to where other phases are tentatively planned to be. Lemke says initial construction activity on the property is already dispersing the elk, and he is worried further construction and the development itself could “alter wildlife use and distribution in significant ways.”

This would seemingly undermine a major aspect of the Ameya vision, but Dokken disputes Lemke’s claim regarding the Bullis Creek habitat. Dokken says it's not even close to being the top habitat on the property. Dokken also says building envelope design and deed restrictions on pets and fences will decrease conflict with wildlife. But Lemke says the sheer numbers of wildlife in the area and number of homes planned for Ameya all but guarantee such conflict.

Bill Orsello, a member of the executive board of the Montana Wildlife Federation and a participant in the rule-making process for the Montana Land Banking Program, said two of the biggest issues in establishing the program were how to appraise potential sale properties and also how to deal with environmentally sensitive land.

The group compromised on appraisal by requiring sale properties to be appraised both with and without public access. As for sensitive lands, one of Orsello’s biggest concerns, the group punted. Staffers at the DNRC asked those who were concerned about the environmental issue to trust the agency when they said the intent of the program was not to sell wildlife habitat. Orsello says the DNRC told him they would only try to sell “low hanging fruit.”

The biggest issue for Orsello in the Park County sale is the elk wintering range, which is in short supply across the state.

“There is nowhere we can point to and say we have a surplus of winter range, especially with public access,” Orsello contends. “There are no bargains out there on winter range. The state loses even in the best-case scenario that the landowner is tolerant to elk … Giving up winter range is probably one of the worst ideas they have out there. The state is actively trying to buy winter range around Montana. To take land that we already own and sell it is just poor policy and it’s contrary to the negotiated rules we have.”

The DNRC opened a new comment period on the third alternative of the EA on June 29, 2007. The initial comment period ended on July 16, 2007, and, once again, the DNRC received criticism on the length of the comment period and the fact that it included the Fourth of July holiday. The DNRC later extended the period to July 23, 2007. Many said the amended EA still did not address critical issues concerning the environment and public health and safety. The release of the new amended environmental assessment is due soon. In it, the agency will be including more alternatives to the outright sale, and another public comment period will follow.

The file on the sale contains a fair amount of comments, the lion’s share of which raise concerns about the sale or are in outright opposition. Several surrounding landowners expressed concerns about the sale, and groups like the Northwest Section of the Montana Wildlife Society, the Park County Rod & Gun Club and the Headwaters Sportsman’s Association all are urging the DNRC not to sell the property to the developers.

There is an underlying concern among the land sale’s critics that the DNRC attempted to fast-track the sale of sections 18 and 20 to Dokken. All sales in the land banking process are open to a public auction. Because he owns the surrounding land, Dokken is the most likely buyer if the DNRC sells the property. Still, the majority of discussions around the sale seem to center only on Ameya, and Dokken’s repeated claims of owning 11,000 acres give the appearance that he feels entitled to the public land.

On September 13, 2007, DNRC area manager Garry Williams, DNRC Trust Lands Unit Manager Craig Campbell, School Superintendent Linda McCullough and a representative for Montana Land Board Member John Morris held an “information-gathering session” in Livingston in response to opposition letters to the Bullis Creek land sale.

At the meeting, Park County Commissioner Jim Durgan asked the state representatives why all discussion of the sale focused on Ameya, and Durgan even went so far as to question whether deal-cutting was going on. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer sits on the Montana Land Board, and he attended a Democratic fundraiser Dokken hosted on his property in August 2006.

When asked about the relationship between the Governor and Dokken, Schweitzer spokeswoman Sarah Elliott referred to Dokken as merely an “acquaintance,” yet someone in the governor’s office called the developer to alert them of the inquiry soon after.

Also at issue is an exploratory water test well illegally drilled on State Section 20 by Allied Engineering. At the September meeting Allied’s Doug Chandler emphasized he called the DNRC as soon as his firm realized where they had drilled. Chandler called it a mistake and blamed it on “a young man that logged the holes … and put them in the wrong spot," though several at the meeting raised major doubts about the possibility of such a miscalculation in the age of sophisticated GPS positioning.

There is also the inherent issue of fair valuation for the land. If public sections — especially environmentally important ones- are auctioned off at bargain prices, it stands to reason developers could capitalize on this to the detriment of the land and public access. The state sections within Ameya are currently valued at about $3,000 an acre, though the DNRC will reappraise the sections if they decide to sell.

Land eligible for the land banking program is appraised based on the cost of undeveloped land, which varies greatly across Montana. Take, for example, two sales through the program in 2006: 1,600 acres in eastern Montana’s Treasure County sold for $368,000 — a paltry $230 per acre. Land in Flathead County carries a significantly different price tag: 85 acres sold there for $6.4 million — more than $7,500 per acre.

The disparity between prices in eastern and western Montana accurately reflects the demand for land in each region. But it's inherently difficult to value the environmental significance of a given piece of property - and of course it's true market value is also related to what a buyer might want to do with it. How the DNRC will judge all that remains to be seen.

PART IV: Private Property, Public Access and Montana Values

The arguments over wildlife habitat and the sale of state sections to the Ameya Preserve are part and parcel of a more emotional issue: whether the development is in tune with Montana "values."

Despite all their efforts to be sensitive to the community, the developers have committed more than a few faux pas and are paying for it. Following the contentious land sale meeting with the county commissioners, Dokken wrote a lengthy response in the Livingston Weekly in which he accused his critics as having “class envy… directed at people who have had more success in life… Perhaps they were smarter. Perhaps they worked harder. Perhaps they were more ambitious. Perhaps they managed their money better,” Dokken wrote.

The remark resulted in nearly two weeks full of incensed letters to the editor in the local daily paper, and though Dokken apologized - saying the remarks were taken out of context and only directed at two critics - his reputation here hasn’t been the same since.

There are also passages in Ameya literature such as “spirited angling for native brown trout” (brown trout are not native to Montana) or providing “access to private heli-skiing in the Absaroka Wilderness Area” (not legal), which seem to reveal a disconnect with the area. Though Dokken knew about the brown trout error this summer, it stayed on the Ameya website until late November. When a local conservation group informed the Ameya team about the illegality of heli-skiing in a wilderness area, the developers changed it to heli-skiing in the “surrounding national forest,” but have since retracted the helicopter claims altogether.

Ameya promotional materials even indicated Ameya residents would be allowed to play biologists through a partnership with the Wildlife Biology Department at the University of Montana: "We intend to tag our bears, lions, wolves, moose and elk and allow residents to follow the migration and hibernation patterns from their homes at Ameya Preserve or their primary homes.”

However, the department director Dan Pletscher says the partnership fizzled because the parties couldn’t agree “on the finer points.”

“You can’t do that [tag wildlife] just for fun,” Pletscher says.

And then there is the issue of public access. Montana has the nation’s strongest law protecting public access to rivers and streams, and while no similar law applies to land, all public lands are open to hiking and — most crucially — hunting. There is also a tradition in Montana of ranchers allowing hunting access (though the truth is that some do, and some don't).

Dokken has repeatedly called Ameya a “private national park.” Such a statement is an oxymoron to Montanans who cherish the public value of two national parks within the state’s borders.

"There appears to be a disconnect between how Ameya and local Montana residents value wildlife and public land," says Tom Lemke of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "It may not make good business sense to Ameya, but to many folks in Montana, wildlife and public land resources are more valuable than dollars and cents alone. They really are."

Dokken has tried to address these issues too, citing the allowance of 75 hunters on his property last season when Lemke requested Dokken to allow hunting.

“We have more public hunting than any private property in Paradise Valley,” Dokken insists. “It sounds like we’re pretty responsive to me.”

In 2007, there were 475 hunter use days on Ameya property. While it is hard to get exact numbers on public hunter access on private land, Bob Anderson — who lives near Ameya on Trail Creek — allowed 614 hunter use days on his property in 2006, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP).

“We have more public hunting than any private property in Paradise Valley,” Dokken insists. “It sounds like we’re pretty responsive to me.”

In the summer of 2006, Dokken contacted Hayes Goosey, president of the Park County Rod & Gun Club (an affiliate organization of the Montana Wildlife Federation), about organizing a bow-hunting program at Ameya in time for the 2006 hunting season. Goosey says although he was hesitant, he thought if the program was set up right the ends would justify the means of working with developers.

Goosey and Dokken began to formulate a bow hunting program, but due to increased pressure to allow hunting from the MFWP that fall, Dokken called Goosey — “almost panicked,” according to Goosey — wanting rifle hunters at Ameya the next day.

“He wanted access only to club members but limited the days to hunt to three days a week,” Goosey recalls. “He didn’t want to upset the outfitters.”

Goosey responded by saying his organization would not come in to play “clean up” and asked Dokken to allow the public 51 percent of the hunting access.

“He kind of approached it as, ‘If your club wants on the gravy train, these are the things you’re going to have to do,’” Hayes says.

Hayes then presented Dokken’s proposal to members of the Rod & Gun Club, who were not interested. Soon after, Dokken began sending Goosey hunting permission slips, which did not sit well with the sportsman; he wanted to further involve the public and the MFWP.

“What you’re doing is completely against what our group stands for,” Goosey told Dokken, which prompted the developer to offer Goosey one more chance “to avail yourself,” according to Goosey. Goosey declined.

“For true conservation, you need public access,” Goosey asserts. “You can’t have a perpetual conservation of land without having people who are interested in conservation. How do you draw interest in that conservation without access to it?”

When asked about the sale of the state sections, Goosey responds, “Once you sell that land, it’s gone. You don’t just come in and buy our lands with the full intention of subdividing them.”

The access issue also arises in relation to Dokken's pledge to put most of the property in a conservation easement. Such easements carry big tax breaks; a property owner can basically take the difference between the value of the land with full development rights and the value of the land if it can't be developed as a tax deduction on both the federal and state level. Easements have become a major tool for conservation in the West, but some argue the tax subsidy should come with a requirement to allow at least some public access.

Dokken seemed to imply early on that he would allow public access to parts of Ameya, but a one-off deal with the Livingston Rod & Gun Club is not what access advocates had in mind. Once again, by allowing even a few hunting permits Dokken is going beyond what is required, but it may be not far enough to win true local support.

PART V: The Race to House the Super Rich

There are many unique aspects to the proposed Ameya Preserve development south of Livingston, but in one key respect the project is almost commonplace in the New West: it's aimed at the ultra-rich, those who can afford to spend many millions of dollars on a second or third or fourth home.

There is a lot of competition in this niche. In Montana alone, there is, famously, the Yellowstone Club, which boasts a private ski resort and what may be the world's most expensive single-family home (and which was, not incidentally, made possible by timber trader Tom Blixseth's shrewd swap to acquire what was once public land). There is neighboring Spanish Peaks, where the price of entry is a bit lower. Just up the road is the new Moonlight Basin ski resort and accompanying real estate development (the owners there recently announced they were seeking partners to speed the build). There is the Rock Creek Cattle Company near Deer Lodge, where the amenities include a working cattle ranch (and whose owner, Fidelity National Financial chairman William Foley, counts Whitefish Mountain Resort and several restaurant chains among his Montana holdings).

There is Saddlehorn, near Bigfork, which is also touting its environmental friendliness. There is the Wilderness Club, near Eureka, the Iron Horse Ranch, outside of Whitefish, and the venerable Stock Farm, the Charles Schwab-driven development in the Bitterroot Valley.

Indeed, the biggest challenge for the Ameya Preserve may have less to do with local opposition and state land politics than with basic business issues. With the real estate market in a slump and so many developments aimed at the same high-end demographic, will Ameya sell?

On one level, the Ameya Preserve and its developer, Wade Dokken, are taking a risk by not including some standard luxury second-home amenities, especially a golf course. Ameya also lacks any kind of waterfront; man-made ponds are part of the plan, but there are no lakes or on-site river access. Nor is there a ski resort nearby; the closest one, Bridger Bowl, is almost an hour away.

What the developers hope will set Ameya apart are its eco-friendliness and its emphasis on cultural amenities. Call it the thinking-man's second-home community, or, if you're more cynical, the liberal elite's luxury retreat. “It’s not an escape hatch for the pampered and privileged,” an Ameya brochure insists. “It’s a gathering place for the curious and accomplished.” A recent Wall St. Journal story referred to a competition to equip developments with "PC Amenities," and Ameya Preserve topped the charts.

The cultural features will include the restaurant and cooking classes, courtesy of Alice Waters, the reknowned Berkeley-based chef. There will be the dinosaur digs with Jack Horner. Readings, lectures, and what Dokken says will be the largest observatory telescope in the state. Ameya has done an impressive job of recruiting interesting people to be a part of its programs, even if some of them are less than fully committed (former Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Thomas Hoving, who is featured in Ameya literature, told NewWest.Net he was only considering it).

Certainly, the demographic forces driving the high-end home market in the Rockies are very powerful. Wealthy baby-boomers are retiring, or semi-retiring, and looking for less-hectic lifestyles. Technology and the Internet have made work less location-dependent than ever before, bringing a wave of upscale, educated telecommuters to the region. And macro-economic policies over the last two decades have helped create an ever-larger group of people with very large fortunes.

Nowhere have these forces been more powerful than around Bozeman, once a sleepy ski/cow town. According to the Bozeman Planning Department, the city was approximately 6,210 acres (9.7 square miles) in size in 1990. By the end of 2007, it will be approximately 11,540 acres (18 square miles). That's an 86 percent increase in 17 years.

The resort community of Big Sky is 50 miles south of Bozeman near the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park, and it is responsible for a fair share of the growth around Bozeman. Big Sky is home to Big Sky Ski Resort, the Moonlight Basin and a whole lot of luxury homes including the Spanish Peaks and Yellowstone Club developments.

The median price of a single family home in Big Sky soared from $452,750 in 2004 to $1,625,000 in 2006, according to the Gallatin Association of Realtors, and since transaction prices don't have to be reported in Montana those numbers may not even include some of the most expensive sales. (The median price has dropped to a mere $1,411,000 in 2007.) If Big Sky is emblematic of one aspect of the new Montana, the Yellowstone Club is emblematic of the new Big Sky. “The world’s only private ski and golf community” includes 13,400 acres replete with a $155 million home, a Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course and a private ski resort plush with open bowls of “Private Powder™.” Membership in this club is invitation only, with a $250,000 membership fee and homesites starting at over $2 million.

The Yellowstone Club makes few environmental claims — in fact, it was fined by the state and the EPA for pollution violations during its construction — but it does incorporate conservation easements, a model developers across the state are beginning to utilize more. Property owners can give up certain rights of ownership by protecting portions of their land as open space. Owners receive income tax deductions in return, although the IRS is increasing its scrutiny on easements because of some serious abuses.

Conservation easements like those at the clubs in Big Sky not only preserve valuable land and water, but they also give developers a valuable selling tool. Properties with access to open space easements are hot commodities in the housing market, particularly in places like Montana where potential buyers come to enjoy big skies.

The new Saddlehorn development on Flathead Lake near Bigfork, Montana is also citing environmental friendliness as a key selling point. The developers quote World Green Building Council Past President Kath Williams in their promotional materials, stating that “Saddlehorn has made the strongest commitment to sustainability for a rural community that I have ever seen.” Phase One at Saddlehorn includes about 70 homesites ranging in price from $237,000 to $844,000.

The looming question is, are there buyers for all these developments? So far, the real estate bust appears to have hurt the very high end of the market less than other segments, but there are certainly signs of weakness. Figures on actual lots sold at these developments can be hard to come by, with county records often showing only inscrutable transactions among corporate entities.

And will environmental-friendliness turn out to be an effective selling tool? Or will it fall by the wayside in favor of more conventional luxury amenities?

Paradoxically, it's hard not to get the sense that some of the opposition to the Ameya Preserve is because of, not in spite of, all the environmental claims. Most Montanans are instinctively sympathetic to people's right to make money from their property, and while they may not like seeing so much land being sold off to the wealthy, they accept it. But when a developer insists that he's not a developer at all, and that he's developing the land in order to conserve it, people begin to wonder.

Is it realistic to say that building up to 300 luxury homes on an arid and infamously windy greenfield site rich in wildlife can result in environmental balance and also pencil out economically? Wade Dokken is betting a lot of money, time and energy that the answer is yes.

“It’s totally realistic,” Dokken emphatically argues. “One-hundred percent of the evidence supports that.”

But like other grandiose statements made by Dokken, “100 percent” will be a tough claim to prove.

Story and photos by David Nolt.