16 U.S.C. § 460aaa–3 — Acquisition

(a) General authority: The Secretary must buy or otherwise acquire land, water, structures, or interests like easements inside the national recreation area's boundaries, to carry out this law's purposes. But the Secretary cannot buy privately owned land in the area without the owner's consent — unless the owner agrees to follow the rules in subsection (b)(1) and gives the Secretary a "right of first refusal" as described in subsection (b)(2). ("Right of first refusal" means the Secretary gets first chance to buy before the owner sells to anyone else.) The Secretary must also buy land or buildings on the mainland, but only as much as is needed for access to the recreation area and for administrative buildings. When buying land, the Secretary must give quick, careful attention to any offer to sell made by a person or organization that owns property inside the recreation area. (b) Private lands: (1) An owner of empty (unimproved) private land inside the recreation area may build vacation homes there, as long as the homes match the architectural style of other buildings in the area, following the management plan required by section 460aaa–6. (2) Before selling, trading, giving away, or otherwise transferring private land, land interests, or buildings in the recreation area, the owner must first offer them to the Secretary — at no more than fair market value. The Secretary then has 120 days to accept the offer. After accepting, the Secretary has until 45 days after the end of the following fiscal year to actually complete the purchase. The land cannot be sold to anyone else for less than the price offered to the Secretary, and if it's offered for sale again later, it must go to the Secretary first again. There's one exception: this rule doesn't apply when the property changes hands within the immediate family of the person who owned it on January 1, 1989. "Immediate family" here means the owner's spouse, siblings, children (birth or adopted), stepchildren, and direct descendants.