A private developer is asking the federal government for access through protected land inside Yosemite National Park so it can build a shortcut to its property.

In February 2024, Kingsbarn Realty Capital paid approximately $4 million for Hazel Green Ranch, 83 acres just outside Yosemite's western boundary, where Kingsbarn says it envisions a lodge-and-cabin development.

The property has one flaw: reaching Yosemite Valley from it means a ten-mile detour, about ninety minutes. So Kingsbarn wants a shortcut.

According to reporting by NOTUS, Kingsbarn has asked the Department of the Interior for a land exchange or easement involving approximately 1.1 acres of federal land so it can build a roughly 700-foot private road connecting the property to Big Oak Flat Road inside Yosemite.

A previous owner pursued separate legal claims seeking more direct access through Yosemite. A federal district court dismissed those claims, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal in 2012. The geography has not changed. Only who is asking, and who is listening.

The opposition is bipartisan. On September 2, 2026, sixty-one California state legislators from both parties, led by Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis, urged Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to reject the exchange. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff oppose it, as do California's attorney general and Yosemite's employee union.

Cicely Muldoon, Yosemite's superintendent until 2025: "If this can happen in Yosemite, it can really happen anywhere in the national park system."

The strip is small. The precedent is not. If a developer can obtain protected parkland because its property lacks a convenient entrance, every parcel bordering a national park becomes a candidate for the same request.

Interior says no final decision has been made. But on September 11, Representative Chellie Pingree, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Interior Department, wrote that Interior had listed the Yosemite land exchange as priority number six for fiscal year 2026—even though the agency had not identified the land it would receive in return. That is why now is the moment.

We call on Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service, and Congress to protect Yosemite by taking the following actions:

1. Interior Secretary Burgum and the National Park Service must reject any transfer, exchange, sale, or easement of Yosemite parkland for a private development access road.

2. Congress must prohibit federal funds or authority from being used to transfer, exchange, sell, or grant an easement over national parkland primarily to provide private access to—or increase the value of—a private development.

Sign and share this petition—and tell federal leaders that Yosemite is not a driveway.