Tag: Christine Wyrobek

RVing shenanigans of the past year

No, this is not a glamping tent, no matter how much it looks like one. It’s an Airbnb rental, which means it sits not in a campground but on a residential site—along with 12 others in Minnesota.

The end of one year and the start of another frequently prompts retrospectives by those seeking closure or looking to demonstrate their cleverness. Sometimes it would be better if they didn’t.

This week, for example, the RV Industry Association breathlessly announced its “top 10 highlights from 2023!” and led off with its 2023 Vacation Cost Comparison Study. Released last April, this 125-page analysis “found” that “RV vacations cost much less than other types of vacation travel, even when factoring in fuel prices and the cost of RV ownership.” “Found”— rather than “established” or “determined”—was an apt choice of verbs, given its overtone of accidental discovery.

Indeed, as I wrote here and here, the “comparison study” suffered from several analytical errors and oversights, leading me to conclude that “the argument that RVing is an economical way to vacation works only if such a vehicle gets deposited in your driveway for free and it never suffers any mechanical issues.” But at least RVIA was touting its cost-benefit analysis in an understandable if flawed attempt to bolster sagging RV sales, which despite such efforts continued their plunge right through the end of the year. There’s less excuse, however, for RVIA to continue promoting such questionable claims today, even if in the guise of a top-ten list of the past year. That’s like the White Star Line citing the April 2 completion of RMS Titanic as one of its highlights of 1912.

Perhaps RVIA leadership is just too lazy or too innumerate to engage in a bit of critical thinking about its output. As much can’t be said for the outright grifters that the campground industry has attracted the past couple of years, few of whom can claim ignorance of the scams they’re peddling. Take Travis John, for example. As I wrote last January, John was looking to raise $8 million from 10,000 or so investors so he—and they—could buy a campground. The sales pitch included a lot of trendy jargon about non-fungible tokens and how John’s company, Campers DAO, would use “latest blockchain technology and an innovative business model to turn a membership into an NFT asset.”

Apparently that innovative business model didn’t find a lot of buyers. And, of course, the whole airy-fairy world of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible anything began wavering, culminating in the November conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried. But by then John had already retreated to a hidey hole somewhere, announcing in April an indefinite delay of the Campers DAO launch while it went about “building more value.” Not a peep out of him since.

Meanwhile, the unbelievable promise of a full year of luxury RV camping for just $3,100 a year has proven to be just that, as two of the four partners in the Whispering Oaks Luxury RV Park in Arkansas filed suit in December against the other two. The aggrieved partners averred that it is “no longer reasonably practical to carry on” the business, not least because, they allege, Brian and Stacy Sides misappropriated business assets for personal gain, bounced checks and otherwise acted in ways that “damage and destroy the business.”

How shocking was that? It shouldn’t have been. As I wrote in April (what’s with this April thing?), Sides already had a record that included defrauding three Joplin, Missouri women out of a combined $29,000 for work he never performed. But when a local reporter earlier this year asked him about the incident, he responded with the classically moronic “there is another guy that done that” riposte. It goes without saying that not a shovelful of dirt has been turned at the luxury RV park site, its website has vanished, and so has the entrance billboard.

Other fantastical campground deals announced last year remain to be played out, including a luxury (aren’t they all, these days?) RV park in Danville, VA proposed by developer Joe Cubas, whose other bright idea is to make that town a Virginia version of Sturgis, SD. And, of course, there’s the grand design by failed Florida real estate developer Ricky Trinidad to build a “white glove” RV resort in Pennsylvania covered by a massive, transparent air dome. Local politicians in both municipalities have been tripping over each other in their eagerness to welcome these so-called revitalization projects, so one can only hope a brisk winter will shock some sense into them.

The seductive—if empty— promise of a financial bonanza for the locals is often enough to mute the critics when someone proposes a multimillion tourist development, but several notable exceptions were notched in 2023. Among them was the victorious campaign in Saugerties, NY against a proposed KOA glampground under the Terramor name plate, and the less heralded deep-sixing of a $30 million luxury (yes, again) campground proposed for New Hope, Tennessee. While the Saugerties battle featured a relatively media-savvy grassroots movement in a relatively economically resilient area, New Hope is “a wide spot on two-lane Route 156 that has one Dollar General, two beauty shops and a meat processing business,” as I wrote in, yes, April. But in July, after a bit of local agitation and a petition drive, the developer backed out.

Local resistance isn’t always effective, though, if an RV resort developer has exceptionally deep pockets and the locals are slow to cotton on to what’s happening. That’s been the story in Midway, Kentucky, where town fathers initially welcomed and then belatedly backpedaled from a monster project known as the Kentucky Bluegrass Experience Resort, projected to become one of the ten largest RV resorts in the eastern U.S. When the full scope of the proposal—and how it would impact the local community—finally sank in, Midway’s city council tried to block the project by refusing to extend municipal water and sewer to the site.

That was more than two years ago, but despite the lack of subsequent headlines, the developers didn’t just go away. Instead they played the long game, culminating in October in approval of an ordinance allowing RV parks to operate private sewer plants. Such private plants had been banned a couple of decades ago, after several local mobile home parks had private systems that failed, spilling raw sewage into local waterways. But history doesn’t repeat—does it?

Finally, one more example of perseverance against local opposition deserves spotlighting. Christine Wyrobek, told by her local planning commission in May (not April!) that she could not build a glampground on her 45 acres abutting Lake Vermilion, Minnesota, went ahead and did so, anyway. She’s just not describing it as a campground. As she explained to a Star Tribune reporter in September, her 13 campsites “fall securely within the county ordinance allowing short-term rentals for fewer than 180 days on residential property—which also allows for VRBO and Airbnb rentals.” And so glampground out, Airbnb rentals in.

Just when you thought all possible blurring of the lines about “camping” had been achieved. . . .

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Idalia, disabled vets and glamp hustle

The bad news this past week was that Idalia exceeded even the most pessimistic early forecasts, slamming into the Florida coast as a Category 3 hurricane. The good news is that she tore through the state with hardly a hiccup, dumping a lot less rain than some had feared. Nonetheless, the storm surge was almost as as bad as predicted, cresting at seven feet or more above sea level—more than enough to roll right over the site of the proposed Fishcreek Glampground, about which I wrote last weekend.

How much damage was sustained at the westernmost end of the West Ozello Trail, where it nears Fishcreek Point, might not be known for some time— but with Citrus County one of just seven Florida counties declared national disaster areas as a result of the storm, the prognosis is not good. Nor is there any way to forecast whether Idalia and the damage she wreaked will force any rethinking of the idiocy of putting an RV park and glampground in such a perilous location, although I wouldn’t want to bet on it. All that will shake out in the weeks ahead, but it’s already clear that some lessons are learned the hard way.

When local residents objected that hurricane winds and storm surge would vastly hinder an evacuation of Fishcreek Point, their concerns were brushed aside by glampground promoter Jen Magradze with the claim that there would be ample time for people to get out before a storm hit. Last week’s events, as law enforcement officials cruised the flooded streets in airboats, suggest otherwise. As Chris Evan, director of Citrus County Emergency Management, told a local reporter, Idalia’s storm surge was comparable to that of Hurricane Hermine in 2016, which area residents “took seriously.” Yet just seven years later, he added, “the thing that concerns me is, people didn’t heed the warnings.”

People have an inclination to say whatever they think will get them what they want, even when a cursory look at the facts suggests otherwise, which certainly has been the case with Fishcreek Point. But people also have an immense capacity for simply rejecting what they don’t want to hear and moving ahead with whatever they’re after, often justifying their actions by appealing to a higher purpose or calling.

Such is the case at Lake Vermilion in Minnesota, where Christine Wyrobek, the owner of approximately 45 acres zoned for residential use, sought to open a 47-site glampground oxymoronically called Rough-N-It. Her rezoning request was denied in May on a 7-1 vote by the county planning commission, following a public hearing at which local residents spoke 42-3 in opposition to Wyrobek’s proposal and the local town board weighed in with a unanimously approved resolution, also in opposition. Among their concerns—as at Fishcreek Point in Florida—was the access road to the property, described as the most dangerous in the area; and with the campground itself accessible only by boat, first-responders would face serious obstacles in an emergency

No matter. An undeterred Wyrobek plowed ahead anyway, announcing in mid-August that Rough-N-It was open for business. Her hook, and presumably the sympathy-evoking ploy she hoped would convince her defiance to be overlooked? Rough-N-It would be serving disabled veterans, who would get a 90% discount from the $100-a-night fee charged to “regular campers.” In essence, Wyrobek was saying, shutting her down would be tantamount to spitting on the American flag.

Jen Magradze and Christine Wyrobek, for all their apparent differences, are sisters under the skin. Each acquired a piece of land that was legally incompatible with their ideas of what they wanted to do with it; each faced stiff opposition from local residents who believe existing zoning and land use regulations should apply; each had their proposed glampgrounds overwhelmingly vetoed by the local planning commission. And each pushed ahead nonetheless, one by artful politicking and appealing to local avarice, the other by simply ignoring local officials and hoping to embarrass them with a red herring of a cause.

County officials in Minnesota are now investigating a complaint they received about Rough-N-It operating improperly, but are being tight-lipped about when and how the matter may be resolved. Fishcreek Glampground received the rezoning it needed, but still must clear state environmental review—which, after Idalia, may be more problematic. Neither proposal, however, has done anything in its area to burnish the faded promise of “glamorous camping,” which too often is more glitz than substance, gold leaf rather than gold plate.

This will be my last post for the next six weeks, during which time I’ll be hiking and cycling in mercifully internet-free locales. I expect that little will change in the interim among the many RV- and campground-related developments I’ve been following, but just as assuredly there will be several new off-the-wall proposals tossed into the mix. I’ll look forward to several days of intense catching up, but could use some help: if you know of something you want me to pursue, or if you have an update you think I should know about, please send an email and any appropriate links or background material to: azipser@renting-dirt.com. All subject-matter donations cheerfully accepted!

Happy travels.

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