NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
April 18, 2007

Contact Information

LARAMIE – A new real estate venture between Laramie and Centennial is stirring public ire and fueling demands for stronger zoning regulations in Albany County. The Sheep Mountain Ranch was purchased by the Brooks Realty and Advisory Group of Scottsdale, Arizona, and promptly subdivided into 40-acre parcels for sale.

“This area has been pristine prairie since the beginning of time, but now it’s being polluted with a 225-parcel subdivision.” said Marty Sattler, a local landowner from the Centennial area. “The Arapaho were very observant when they referred to the white man as ‘the Spider People’ — we spread our web of fences and roads across the landscape.”

“We are about to lose one of America's Scenic Byways,” said Sattler, referring to the Snowy Range Scenic Byway, which runs past the Wild Horse property.

The subdivision borders the Sheep Mountain Game Refuge, set aside by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924 to protect nationally important big game ranges. A 1976 study commissioned by the Park Service described the Big Hollow lands being subdivided as “an area of great historical, geological, and biological interest.”  The company’s website touts “natural wonders, wildlife, a wide variety of outdoor recreation and wide open spaces” as the main attraction, the very qualities that the subdivision is poised to destroy.

“The destruction of migratory wildlife routes by such a large development will create real problems for wildlife,” added Sattler.

Brooks Realty is also involved in the subdivision of the 60-square-mile BB Brooks Ranch (no relation) near Casper, which it is carving up into a similar “ranchette” development.

“What’s unusual about these subdivisions is the scale of them,” said Doug Cooper, whose family has ranched on lands bordering the BB Brooks Ranch for more than 100 years. “As the development begins to fill in, the problems are increasing. There is a huge change in terms of habitat fragmentation for the wildlife, heavy ATV use damaging the land, vandalism, trespassing, gates left open, even rally car racing on the dirt roads. A lot of this area is stabilized sand dunes, and the land will simply not sustain this level of use.”

“It’s very depressing for us,” Cooper added. “Neighboring ranchers are heavily impacted by these subdivisions, but there’s no legal recourse once they get started.”

While some counties use planning and zoning regulations to limit the subdivision of large acreages into small parcels, state law does not restrict subdivisions as long as the resulting parcels are larger than 35 acres. And Albany County has no planning or zoning regulations that would have prevented the subdivision of the Sheep Mountain Ranch property.

“Wyoming’s lax planning regulations make us a target for absentee real estate speculators,” Sattler observed.

“The subdivision of the Wild Horse Ranch provides a stark example of why we need the Albany County government to draft strong regulations restricting subdivisions here,” said Sarah Egolf of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “In Carbon County, you can’t subdivide any smaller than one square mile without permission from the County Commission. The only way we’re going to maintain open spaces and wildlife habitat on private lands is through watertight zoning regulations like these, or else the voluntary emplacement of conservation easements by landowners.”

Marty Sattler, Centennial-area landowner, (307) 399-1911
Doug Cooper, Casper-area rancher, (307) 267-0142
Sarah Egolf, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (307) 760-5411