Lots of land, few new camps for scouts For 20 years, the organization's councils have made millions by turning over to developers donated property that was meant for outdoor recreation

This former section of the Sid Richardson Scout Camp was sold to housing developers who are selling lakeside and inland lots for luxury homes. Developers approached the Longhorn Council with an unsolicited $5-million offer to buy part of a camp that wasn't in use. Today, housing developers are selling lakeside and inland lots for luxury homes. less This former section of the Sid Richardson Scout Camp was sold to housing developers who are selling lakeside and inland lots for luxury homes. Developers approached the Longhorn Council with an unsolicited ... more Photo: Todd Bensman, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Todd Bensman, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Lots of land, few new camps for scouts 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The last large stand of woods in a Seattle suburb. A scenic canyon just outside of Los Angeles. Rangelands deep in the heart of Texas.

All are set to be felled, filled and bulldozed so that stately homes, a reservoir and perhaps even a hydroelectric plant may one day rise in their place.

Aside from their now unspoiled, ecologically sensitive settings, the lands share a common bond: The Boy Scouts of America sold them for development.

From Arizona to Virginia, New York to Washington, urban sprawl has replaced timberland and green spaces where boys once camped and learned outdoor skills, a Hearst Newspapers investigation has found.

Over the past 20 years, Boy Scout councils across America have reaped tens of millions of dollars from selling camps and other properties the organization had owned for years. Other scout-owned camps and wildlands are now, or soon could be, on the market.

Forestland "will be in the hands of the Boy Scouts for a long time, and then, 'Oh, gee, we can make a lot more money if we sell it and develop it,' " said Brian Boyle, former Washington state public lands commissioner who now leads the Northwest Environmental Forum, which seeks to keep timberlands forested.

"It's ironic. People work hard to save a piece of property for the scouts, and then they turn around 10 or 15 years later and go sell it to developers."

A review of property deeds, court documents, federal tax filings and other records also revealed cases in which local councils sold lands that were bequeathed to the scouts to be used for outdoor recreation.

Meanwhile, scout lands that are home to protected plants and wildlife have been sold for development, despite protests from the public and scouting volunteers. In some cases, scout councils sought to conserve properties only after public controversy or criticism arose about pending land deals.

That happened in 1999, when the Dallas Council sold a 177-acre camp inside the city limits, sparking outrage among local homeowners. Eventually much of the camp was preserved as open space.

"They just wanted to get their money and go on their way," said Michael Jung, an attorney and board member of the Texas Land Conservancy, which helped the homeowners group work a deal to preserve the camp.

Public controversies helped kill potential mega-deals in Florida and Michigan, among several states where recent offers to buy scout lands for development have led to lawsuits and community protests.

Some scouting officials cite financial need as the key reason for such land sales. Encroaching development and high maintenance and operating costs also can spur a need to sell, they said.

Over the years, as membership and demographics shift, scout councils also have been forced to merge and economize, leading officials to consolidate property assets that can cost millions to maintain, yet sometimes are rarely used, they say.

"All camp sales are not negative," said Dan Clifton, executive of the Longhorn Council in Fort Worth, Texas. "At some point, all assets need to be converted and redeployed."

Texas Rangelands

Boy Scout enthusiast Frank Underwood had specific ideas for the use of 1,200 acres of wooded hills near Amon Carter Lake when he sold the land to his local scouting council in 1965. The sprawling ranch northwest of Dallas in Montague County was home to bobcats, wild turkey and other wildlife.

Although the sale - at a price of $56,000 - imposed no restrictions on how the ranch would be used, Underwood thought it would always be a place where boys could learn about nature, the late businessman's son said.

"I would have preferred it stay in Boy Scouts' hands, to protect as many wild areas as we can," said Gregory Underwood, an attorney and former mayor of nearby Bowie, Texas, who remembers camping on the land as a child.

For years, the scouting council kept what was dubbed the Horizon Wilderness Scout Ranch in its unspoiled state. Today it's the Silver Lakes subdivision. In 2002, Northwest Texas Council officials sold the property to Florida developers, Bluegreen Southwest, for $1.1 million. The woods have been cut to accommodate the 1- and 2-acre lots, and homes are under construction. Scout council officials cited financial woes and the availability of other scout camps nearby as factors in the sale of the camp.

"It was a strain on the budget and wasn't being utilized like it should," said executive Guy Wilemon. "The scouts thought it was a wise business decision."

The million-dollar payout for the Northwest Texas Council, which was struggling to stay in the black, is a drop in the bucket compared to other scout land deals - even in Texas.

In 2005, the Longhorn Council in Fort Worth sold a thickly forested chunk of its Sid Richardson Scout Reservation, a 3,500-acre camp fronting Lake Bridgeport near Dallas, for $5.45 million. The scouts were given the property in 1967 by the foundation set up by the camp's namesake, a billionaire oil wildcatter.

Today, the 500-acre live oak forest that spilled along the lake's western shore has been resold and bulldozed into lots for upscale homes.Scouting officials said the scouts didn't use the forest much, and the sale helped build an endowment to fund scout programs. Sid Richardson is long dead, but officials for his foundation say they're satisfied that sale revenues will benefit scouting today more than the land would.

The Longhorn Council also sold its 300-acre Leonard Scout Camp along the Brazos River to developers in 2001 for an estimated $3 million.

Council officials cited encroaching development as the reason for selling land that had been donated decades earlier. But they didn't widely advertise the camp sale, sparking criticism from scout volunteers, who learned about it only after the fact. Some critics now contend council officials should have sought a buyer interested in preserving the land, not developing it.

Scenic canyon

A legal fight erupted in Southern California after the Los Angeles Area Council sold more than 2,500 acres of its Firestone Scout Reservation in 2000 to the City of Industry for $16.5 million.

The city bought the land - an "ecologically significant area" near Diamond Bar - with plans to build a reservoir and hydroelectric plant. The scout council used money from the sale to offset upkeep costs. Other environmental groups said they made higher offers, but the scouts chose to sell to the city, in part because that offer allowed them to keep 980 acres for scouting. The Sierra Club and others unsuccessfully sued to block the deal.

Carlyle Hall, a lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said the city's planned "reservoir would, of course, flood and kill everything in the canyon."

"Everybody was quite disappointed that the scouts were willing to sell it for what would be the utter destruction of whatever environmental values were there," Hall added.

The reservoir hasn't been built, and the camp is still in business.

Elsewhere, partnerships with conservation groups have led to the preservation of some scout camps. In Pennsylvania, the Natural Lands Trust has helped broker deals to preserve more than 5,200 acres at two camps. Other government entities and preservationists have helped to buy and save camp lands elsewhere.

Still, scouting councils say the constant creep of development makes preserving formerly remote camps difficult.

"When you're on a camp-out and can hear the TV blasting and smell the steak barbecuing from the house just beyond the trees, that kind of kills the whole outdoor experience," said Rich Szymanski, properties director for the Cascade Pacific Council in Portland, Ore.

Often, the only financially viable solution, scouting officials say, is to sell such lands to builders that typically have more money than conservation groups.

A task force for the Portland council recently recommended selling its popular Scouters' Mountain camp for no less than $30 million, a chunk of which would be used to help replace $600,000 in annual funding the council lost after scouting organizations nationwide banned gays and atheists. A tentative deal was struck in 2007 with a developer who planned to build up to 500 homes on part of the 200-acre camp, but the deal fell through when the economy soured, officials said.

Suburban Seattle

The sagging economy has helped delay at least one other project set for scout land, giving opponents time to ready a lawsuit.

In suburban Bothell, Wash., developer CamWest plans to build luxury homes on woodlands primarily owned by the Chief Seattle Council. But in recent months, the project seems stalled. That suits neighbor Sandra Clement just fine.

Clement, who lives at the woods' edge, has spearheaded the grassroots, Help Our Woods campaign to fight the project.

"I always thought the Boy Scouts were about trying to teach young boys about nature, how to conserve it and make it better," Clement said. "Not logging it and building over it."

Her group contends the land contains old-growth trees and provides habitat to coyotes, owls, eagles and other wildlife. They have gathered signatures, hired a lawyer and count among volunteers a wildlife biologist, who has observed "protected species" on the site, Clement said.

Another biologist, hired by the city, also found discrepancies in the developer's wildlife report, saying its assertion that "wildlife use of the site is minimal" just isn't correct.

Officials for the scouting council, which received the land from local entrepreneur Ellen Fortin in the early 1980s, say the project plans are up to the developers. But the council's agreement to sell the woodland was done to live up to the donor's intent, they said.

"The land was donated to us for the express purpose of selling it," said Alicia Lifrak, the council's chief operating officer.

Inside: Many donors gave the Boy Scouts land on the condition that it be preserved or used by boys for outdoor activities. In dozens of cases, the land was sold for development. A9