By Dorothy Korber, The Sacramento Bee
July 28, 2000
While planners wrestle with the future of Yosemite Valley, a proposal is quietly advancing for a new upscale resort
along Highway 120 -- inside the national park gates and just 16 miles from the valley's heart.
The 300-unit development is penciled in for 80 acres called Hazel Green, a forest and meadow that's been privately
owned since stagecoaches stopped there as they rattled along the dusty old Coulterville Road into Yosemite.
The National Park Service has encouraged the development -- which promises an 800-space parking lot for Yosemite
Valley day-trippers -- but some environmentalists say the plan endangers rare Sierra meadowland and the creatures
living there.
Developer Lewis Geyser of Destination Villages LLC envisions a new kind of stage stop for Hazel Green. He proposes
a rustic but posh resort, nestled in the woods near the meadow, where visitors will enjoy a nostalgic night in
a log cottage for $300 or rough it in a tent cabin for $150.
He reckons the project will cost roughly $25 million and take about 15 months to construct -- if he gets the approvals
he needs from the park service and Mariposa County.
From Geyser's perspective, there's one catch: A 600-foot-wide swath of Yosemite National Park lies between his
property and Highway 120. He wants an easement across the federal land to connect the resort to the busy northern
route into the park.
"What I want is a straight-line road to 120," Geyser said. "What I have is patience. I want to build
something nice here and really wonderful for people -- to take them back to the turn of the 20th century when John
Muir slept at Hazel Green."
To sweeten the deal, Geyser is offering to provide -- free -- eight acres for public parking.
The lot would be used by motorists who would take shuttle buses into Yosemite Valley. Every six minutes, 16 hours
a day in the summer, the park service anticipates that a bus would head out from Hazel Green on the road toward
El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Falls.
Geyser hopes his proposal will be incorporated into the final Yosemite Valley Plan, due in December, which aims
to reduce traffic congestion in the narrow, spectacular valley.
Yosemite officials, who are also considering using another nearby site for the parking lot, see merit in Geyser's
offer.
"This is exactly the sort of thing our general management plan calls for: reducing lodging inside the park
and building it on private land," said Chip Jenkins, chief planner for Yosemite National Park. "We don't
want a multistory, high-rise hotel, but he's talking about rustic accommodations, with no telephones or TVs.
"We were planning on putting a satellite parking area near Hazel Green anyway, at a cost to the public of
$4 million or so. Mr. Geyser has offered to build the road, the parking lot, restrooms, wastewater treatment plant
and a visitor orientation station. It would certainly save us money," Jenkins said.
Geyser, a seasoned Santa Barbara developer who opens a new resort in Bermuda next week, has crafted another tasty
carrot to help him win support.
He's promised to build a lab and dorm at Hazel Green for the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, a keystone program
of the planned University of California campus in Merced.
And he's offered to endow -- with a donation of at least $500,000 -- a "John Muir Professorship" for
the embryonic university. Geyser already serves as a trustee on the UC Merced Foundation, a panel of prominent
university advisers.
"Both the research station and the professorship will be excellent recruitment tools for UC Merced,"
said an enthusiastic Karen Merritt, director of academic planning for the new university. "First and foremost,
this would provide a field site for researchers from around the world."
Geyser has a stick as well as a carrot.
He says an historic right-of-way already exists between Hazel Green and Highway 120, but it's 10 miles long and
brushes the Merced Grove of giant sequoias. Yosemite officials can choose between that unappetizing alternative
-- or granting Geyser the 600-foot easement.
"I can force them to give me access down near those redwoods, but I don't want a fight," Geyser said.
"I want to partner with the park service."
The agency's attorneys agree that Geyser can make a case for an existing right-of-way on his land. Mariposa County
officials have yet to review his development plan.
Earlier this year, hoping to head off environmental protests, Geyser convened a meeting of activists to outline
his plan for a "green" development.
He failed to persuade John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center.
"Hazel Green has a beautiful wet meadow and a diversity of habitat," Buckley said. "People will
trample the marsh grass and wild flowers. And the meadows are home to threatened amphibians like the mountain yellow-legged
frog and the Yosemite toad.
"Our other concerns are really no-brainers. This property has no water, sewers or power. You could have thousands
of people a day stopping and using the restrooms at this site. You'll have wells sucking up water. You'll have
power lines and night-time lighting."
Geyser counters that his plan will protect the meadow, though raised walkways will allow visitors to view the wetlands.
He has gained the cautious support of Jay Watson, regional director of the Wilderness Society.
"It would be a really good location for out-of-valley parking," Watson said. "It's clear that the
owner wants to work with the park service by making an offer that is generous and attractive.
"The challenge will be to see that Hazel Green is developed in a way that doesn't harm resources in the area."
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