Update: Land board rejects Trident’s appeal to revisit proposed McCall land swap.
UPDATE: (Sept. 21, 2021): The Idaho Board of Land Commissioners on Tuesday denied a request for a contested case hearing on a proposed land swap in McCall. Last month the Idaho Department of Lands rejected the proposal, which would have traded timberland in North Idaho for roughly 28,000 acres of state endowment land near Payette and Little Payette lakes.
The land board heard from Alec Williams of Trident Holdings, the investment firm that sought the swap. Williams again repeated claims that the Idaho Department of Lands erroneously valued the McCall land at $366 million while valuing the timberlands at $71 million. Williams said Trident’s calculations show the value of both tracts at around $40 million.
Two weeks ago, Trident filed suit against the Department of Lands, claiming that its rejection of the proposal was a “clumsy attempt to avoid having to do an exchange.” The firm also accused IDL employees of acting on bias against the swap.
The lawsuit contained a provision that would have paused proceedings if the land board chose to review the rejection. The judicial review will now proceed.
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The following version of this story was originally published on Sept. 8, 2021.
An Idaho developer has filed a lawsuit against the Idaho Department of Lands in a bid to revive a land swap it proposed, which the department rejected last month.
Trident Holdings, a Boise-based investment firm, filed a petition for judicial review of administrative action on Tuesday. The petition, as well as a contested case hearing request, stems from the Idaho Department of Lands’ rejection of a Trident-proposed land swap that would have traded state-owned land near Payette Lake for timber property in North Idaho.
In a letter to IDL Director Dustin Miller that accompanied the petition, Trident’s lawyer said the firm’s “primary intention continues to be good faith engagement and informal efforts toward mutually agreeable resolution.” Trident said it would pause the petition proceedings if the Land Board takes up the contested case hearing or for “ongoing informal efforts to address concerns regarding the denial of the requested exchange.”
The petition alleges that the Department of Lands rejected Trident’s proposal in a move that was “arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion.” Trident requested that the Ada County District Court vacate the department’s decision and order a supervised review of the proposal, with a third-party appraisal of the McCall-area property.
Since its bid was rejected, Trident has maintained that the department overestimated the value of the roughly 28,000 acres of land it hoped to purchase around Payette and Little Payette lakes. IDL documents showed the North Idaho land Trident hoped to trade has an assessed value of $71 million, while the McCall-area land was estimated at $366 million.
Alec Williams, Trident’s founder, doubled down on those concerns in an emailed statement to the Idaho Statesman, saying the rejection was based on inflated numbers that constitute a “clumsy attempt to avoid having to do an exchange” based on staff preferences.
“If you can come up with a sky-high valuation for lands in Valley County, there’s no way a land exchange would ever make sense,” Williams said later in a phone interview.
Scott Phillips, policy and communications chief for the department, told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview Wednesday that “IDL stands by its analysis.” Phillips declined to comment further, citing the pending litigation.
Trident alleged further issues with the department’s process in its request for a contested case hearing. In a letter to Gov. Brad Little, who leads the Land Board, Trident said the Department of Lands used “flawed data” and made “bizarre factual assertions” about its land swap proposal. The firm asked Little and the other land commissioners, including Secretary of State Lawerence Denney, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Miller, the department’s director, to rehear its proposal.
“Specifically, we request you address the unexplainable 915% increase in IDL’s estimated land value — from roughly $40 million in March to between $366 million and $488 million now — by inquiring about IDL’s value assertions, examining the process failures outlined below, and redirecting IDL to commission an independent third-party appraisal and split costs with applicants,” the letter said.
IDL has previously said the value discrepancy stemmed from an old land value that was not intended for transactional use.
Trident goes on to tell the Land Board that it did not receive prompt responses from the Department of Lands after it submitted its proposal in February. Much of the request directs accusations at Josh Purkiss, who heads the department’s real estate bureau and recommended against the land swap.
Trident alleged bias due to the fact that Purkiss submitted a public comment — “Please don’t support trading public land,” he wrote — to a McCall City Council meeting on the proposed swap. Trident also pointed to the fact that Purkiss is a member of Idaho Rivers United, a conservation group focused on waterway preservation. The group came out publicly against the swap.
Trident has said it wants to build housing on part of the land, would preserve other parts for recreation and planned to donate some to enlarge Ponderosa State Park.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 10:10 AM.
