Park Service Land Swap on Cumberland Island Would Allow 8 New Homes

The National Park Service has proposed a land swap on Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia that would hand a stretch of parkland on the island’s west side to two branches of the Carnegie family’s descendants. They would be allowed to build up to eight new private homes there, NPR reported. The plan has split people who care about the island, and the agency received more than 12,500 public comments on it.

The same plan would double daily visitation to the island, up to 700 visitors a day, according to NPR.

What the Park Service proposes

Cumberland is an 18-mile barrier island reachable by ferry. The Park Service has managed the national seashore since 1972, including about 9,800 acres of wilderness designated by Congress. The island also holds private land owned by descendants of Thomas Carnegie and his wife Lucy.

Superintendent Melissa Trenchik told Georgia Public Broadcasting that the parkland in question sits under a grove of live oaks overlooking a salt marsh and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay. She said the goal is to concentrate private ownership on the west side, so the park can better interpret natural and cultural resources on the Atlantic side and could then bar development in sensitive coastal and wilderness areas there.

“Right now, if we do nothing, development is possible,” Trenchik said of the private land the agency wants to acquire. She described the eight homes as “modest,” subject to permanent conservation limits and capped at 35 feet in height.

What supporters say

Barclay McFadden, a great-great-grandson of Thomas Carnegie who is involved in one of the land deals, said criticism that casts his family as modern-day robber barons is unfounded. He said five generations are buried in the family cemetery on the island and that the swap would let younger generations build homes. He also said his grandmother’s generation could have sold to developers in the 1970s and instead protected the island.

His cousin Jamie Ferguson is not directly involved in the proposal. He co-owns, with about 40 others, a Carnegie mansion that now operates as the Greyfield Inn. Ferguson said one benefit would be greater visitor access to The Chimneys, which he called the island’s most important historical monument. The site has the remains of about two dozen brick and tabby chimneys where enslaved workers lived on a cotton plantation that predates the Carnegies.

What opponents say

Joseph Manning, an attorney with the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, said the deal amounts to “swapping for McMansions.” Critics note the plan allows 15,000 square feet per home site, including driveway and outbuildings. Manning described the swap as part of a pattern of land exchanges under the Trump administration, citing a baseball park in Grand Teton, a land exchange in Yosemite and repeated shrinkage of Bears Ears National Monument. He said such deals benefit special interests or a few families rather than expand public access.

Naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel, 85, has lived on the island for more than 50 years and is involved with the group Wild Cumberland. She called the plan “an affront to the American people” and said she fears it is the “first nose under the tent” for more development. She also opposes the increase to 700 visitors a day, saying more homes and people will disturb what should be primitive wilderness.

Why it matters for visitors

Congress’s 1972 law says the seashore is to be “permanently preserved in its primitive state.” The proposal would change who owns land on the west side of the island and how many people the park plans to admit each day. It would also affect access to The Chimneys, which Ferguson says the swap would improve.

Several parties disagree on what preserving the island means. The Park Service says consolidating ownership protects the Atlantic side. Opponents say new homes and more visitors work against wilderness protection. The sources do not give a date for a final decision.

Source: NPR