The Many Uses of Land
Many of our readers may not look at their ranch as part of a larger development, but there are valuable lessons to be learned from the sophistication the Perot family has brought to the use of resources at Alliance, Texas.
The Alliance, Texas, development plan includes:
• Circle T Ranch • Texas Motor Speedway • Alliance Airport
• A railroad yard as part of a multi-modal transportation program
• 37,000 jobs from companies that moved in • 35 million square feet of corporate and retail space • 7,000 homes • Communications hubs • Data storage centers • Fortune 500 corporate headquarters • A burgeoning small-business and franchise community • A charter school
• Room for additional business, residential and transpor- tation growth
H. Ross Perot Jr., explains, “We developed all of this start- ing about 25 years ago. Originally, our vision was to do an airport project. The FAA wanted to build a new airport and they asked us to donate land for it. Then it got bigger and bigger,” he says.
Now, the land supports one of the largest railroad yards in the country. “We’re moving 700,000 containers a year through that and are connected to every major West Coast port. That’s why we’re the largest foreign trade zone in the country.”
Perot points out that Tarrant County, Fort Worth, is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. “A million people are moving into North Texas every 7 years, and a lot of them move into this corridor. Through the years everything around us will continue to grow and we’ll continue to ranch. That’s the goal,” he says.
With commuters, corporations and urban neighbors, Circle T Ranch comes under a great deal of casual scrutiny. Perot, Mark Baker, ranch manager, and the ranch team know this and operate the ranch to put the best face forward. But even if a ranch does not share a fence line with mansions and or manufacturing, Perot says, “Taking care of your property is the right thing to do. In your heart, you should enjoy taking care of your property. It pays dividends. You add a lot of value to your land if you’re taking care of it. When you take good care of the cattle, you’re adding value every day.”
Part of taking care of the ranch land is taking care of where other activities take place. Consider the placement of oil and
86 The Cattleman November 2014
Ranching can be serious business, but sometimes the sto- ries about ranching in a developing area bring a laugh to H. Ross Perot Jr., left, and Mark Baker, Circle T Ranch manager.
gas operations. “Being in the oil and gas business,” Perot says, “when the shale plays came through we put all the drilling sites on islands. If you look at our ranch today you won’t have well sites everywhere. That’s really helped us maintain the land from a ranching standpoint and a develop- ment standpoint.
“Protecting our land was the No. 1 goal. Producing the min- erals was the second goal. I tell lots of landowners, ‘Before you get started, make sure you have a development plan and try to keep the drilling contained in certain areas.’ You can produce fi ne from big pads. You don’t have to spread the drilling sites around. Oil, gas, land, cattle operations — you can balance all that and each one be economically viable with planning,” he says.
Perot looks at land purchases on many levels. He urges land- owners to consider the value of the surface, minerals, water, and air. “How far above the land will you allow development? In this market a lot of people don’t think about that. I worry about the density of the property. You can sell your property and say, ‘You’re allowed to build only 1- or 2-story buildings. If you want to build higher than that, you have to come back to us to renegotiate,” he says.
Perot encourages landowners to be equally careful with wind power generator placement. “Today, those windmills might make money, but that industry is heavily subsidized and if Congress ever cuts off the subsidy, and the company you lease to goes bankrupt, who’s taking down the windmill? If I were doing windmill deals — and I haven’t done one — all those companies would have to have money in escrow to take down the equipment. You can imagine what those windmills do to your property if they are not generating rev- enue,” he cautions.
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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