The Daily Beast
US billionaire Stan Kroenke wins to kill public access to lakes
Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty The American billionaire Stan Kroenke – the real estate and sports magnate who owns more than 2 million acres of farming in North America – has just won a decade-long legal battle in Canada to keep the public from two lakes that Kroenke, who is married to Walmart heiress Anne Walton, owns the largest farm in Canada – a large mass larger than the Vancouver metropolis, which surrounds two bodies of water: the Stoney and Minnie lakes. The lakes, each more than half a mile long, are both publicly owned in Canada and filled with fish. But the orientation of Kroenke’s property leaves citizens without a route to reach them, forcing prospective hunters and fishermen to take a small dirt road or unpaved wagon road across his land to gain access to the wilderness run by their tax money. be cared for. such as the Douglas Lake Cattle Company or Douglas Lake Ranch, used to block access to these trails with closed gates and fences. (The farm in particular owns two private lakes on the same property, which visitors have to pay an unknown daily rate to gain access to). In 2013, the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club, a local non-profit organization dedicated to wildlife management in the area, sued the farm to open the through roads, arguing that the trail has historical significance to its use. by an indigenous village. , and that Canadian citizens have the right to access public land. In 2018, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge found himself on the side of the recreation group and noted that Canadian tax money had been used to rehabilitate the historic route. But Kroenke appealed, and on Friday a higher court overturned the 2018 ruling and banned Canadians from ‘trespassing’ on the two roads. ‘Our whole club and most residents of the Nicola Valley cannot believe that one Court of Appeal can do that. , with a brush, erase a 20 days [British Columbia] Judgment of the High Court, “Rick McGowan, director of the Nicola Valley Fish and Wildlife Club, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “He eliminated 10 years of research and work, all for the benefit of one wealthy American.” The appellate judges confirmed in their ruling that the lakes and the fish in them are not owned by Kroenke’s farm, but they accept the lawyers’ argument that one road does not reach the “natural boundary” of the waters and that there was insufficient evidence to connect the track to native roots. In their ruling, the judges wrote that the trial judge “added his voice to the chorus of those who want to restrict the rights of private property owners.” “The (Nicola Valley) Club invites us to recognize the right to cross private land where it is necessary to access a lake on land reserved for the public for the public,” said Appellate Judge Peter Willcock written in the documentation. “In my opinion, although this argument can attract a great deal of public support, it has no support in our law.” Evan Cooke, an attorney for the Douglas Lake Cattle Company, called Friday’s ruling “the right decision.” “The DLCC has been convinced from the outset that its position in the case is in accordance with British Columbia law,” Cooke said. The decision of the past week has a high cost to the non-profit environmental organization. The judges ruled that the organization was not a “litigant of public interest”, which meant that he had to pay the billionaire’s legal costs for his appeal, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own debt. According to the Vancouver Sun, the non-profit organization supports its own legal fund with picnics and raffles. ‘It’s likely to be $ 25,000 or $ 30,000 [for Kroenke’s legal expenses], ”McGowan said. “I do not believe we would raise money to pay the legal bills, but we are arranging funding to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada on a number of issues.” The club’s attorney, Christopher Harvey, told the Daily Beast in an email that “the most important issue in the case is public rights of access to public lakes versus private ownership of landowners around the lakes.” “The law maintains the balance between the two competing rights, but as far as water rights are concerned, the law has long preferred public rights over private rights,” he said in an email. “What is remarkable about this decision is that it reverses the equation … Even though the water is in public ownership, no one is allowed to travel about it now if the bed is under water in private ownership.” Within the War Between the Rich and the Super-Rich over an English Golf Course Crooks earned a fortune from developing land: Forbes estimates he owns about 30 million square feet of real estate – mostly in shopping malls near his in-laws’ large stores – which yields a net worth of more than $ 8.2. billion. One of its properties is a large piece of land in northern Texas, around Lake Diversion near Wichita Falls. In 2016, Kroenke evicted hundreds of residents from the 35,000 acre farm and forced them to leave their homes with less than four months notice. According to the Dallas News, most residents were elderly or had a fixed income. “We have family members who have had leases here for 50 years,” Annette McNeil, a resident at the time, told St. Louis Post-Dispatch said. Kroenke has also used part of his fortune in sports teams and owns the NHLs Colorado Avalanche, the NFL’s LA Rams, the English Premier League’s Arsenal FC, and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, among others. The NFL technically does not allow technical owners professional sports properties in competitive cities. But Kroenke found a way around the rules: he arranged for two of the teams to be placed under his son, Josh Kroenke, while keeping it in the family. In 2017, Kroenke became involved in a different kind of sport – an app on demand. Called MyOutdoorTV, which was called the ‘Netflix of the hunting world’. The paid blood sports channel broadcast, among other things, the trophy hunt of endangered animals, including lions and elephants. After MOTV was widely criticized in the press, Kroenke demanded that all content related to big game hunting be removed. McGowan agreed, pointing out that the club intends to raise money to support the effort. “The judge[s] effectively said that water over private land is not navigable for the people of Canada, ”McGowan said. “That means they just give it to the landowner for free.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Forestry, Lands, Natural Resources and Rural Development in British Columbia said it was too early to comment on the decision as the fish and the club could try to have the Supreme Court weighed in. . The decision of the Court of Appeal in British Columbia is an important case with major implications for public access to land in an area where many waterways in Crown are owned by private property. The case falls under a broader international movement on public rights to wilderness, known as the “freedom to roam”. There is increasing pressure in British Columbia to enact ‘right-of-way’ laws. “It makes no sense to me,” Judge Joel Groves wrote in the original 2018 decision, “that the crown would retain ownership of the lakes, just for no access.” “This is not a happy judgment for public rights,” Harvey said. ‘The Attorney General has a legal duty to protect public rights, but in this case it did not happen. The club is completely on its own. Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Send it here to The Daily Beast Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.