STANLEY, Idaho-The great cabin battle is underway.
Early this century, when the West was sparsely populated, the U.S. Forest Service encouraged Americans to occupy getaway homes in forests that were considered to be underutilized. To accomplish this, the Forest Service allowed citizens-for a small fee-to build rustic cabins on pristine federal territory and use them during the summer.
The leases-which number more than 15,600 nationwide-strictly limited the structures that could be built on the sites. Indeed, even today, most surviving cabins have outhouses rather than running water. But the cabins almost always made up in scenery and wilderness proximity what they lacked in modern convenience.
In recent years, many of the areas near such cabins have become prime recreational destinations, and although neighboring private-property values have often skyrocketed, cabin holders have continued to pay only relatively small fees to the Forest Service. Outraged critics, including environmentalists, have recently suggested that the government end the sweet deals. Not surprisingly, cabin holders are vigorously fighting back.
Congress asked the General Accounting Office in 1996 to study if revenue was being lost from undercharging cabin owners. That December, the GAO concluded that the Forest Service ought to squeeze special users of its land, including cabin holders, much harder.
Ironically, the Forest Service had been seeking to reappraise its cabin sites and raise cabin fees for more than a decade, but couldn't-partly because Congress itself had never appropriated enough money to fully fund the project. In 1997, however, the Forest Service began its series of reappraisals, starting with the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in Idaho, which hadn't been appraised since 1978.
"Our current direction," said Bill LeVere, the forest supervisor for the Sawtooth National Forest in central Idaho, "is to try to base the fee on a fair market value."
The Forest Service's effort raised the ire of cabin holders everywhere, but nowhere more vigorously than in the Forest Service's 750,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Cabins in the Sawtooths sit amid a jagged sweep of snow-capped peaks that rise above stretches of grassy meadows, burbling brooks and sapphire lakes-scenery so gorgeous that nearby land prices have risen higher than those around almost any Forest Service location.
By the time the Forest Service's assessors were finished, most Sawtooth cabin holders were looking at enormous lease hikes. Some annual leases were to rise from $200 to $9,000; others were to leap from $4,000 to $67,000. All told, the Forest Service would be increasing its annual cabin-lease revenues by eightfold in the Sawtooths, from $100,000 to $800,000. (A quarter of that revenue would have benefited Idaho counties, and three-quarters would have gone to the U.S. Treasury.)
Some holders of the 182 Sawtooth cabins are wealthy enough to afford the increases; Bruce Willis, the actor, reportedly owns a cabin in the area. But many, if not most, cabin holders are ordinary people whose families have held onto their cabins for generations. As a result, a small group of fortunate and well-organized middle-class Americans are arguing that the government should continue cutting them a break in order to prevent a worse fate.
"The scenario we see if these new fees come through is that only the wealthy could afford these cabins," says David R. Mead, president of the Sawtooth Forest Cabin Owners Association. "The typical cabin owner cannot afford to pay the higher fees-there are retired people, widows, schoolteachers, young families who inherited a cabin."
For now, the Sawtooth cabin holders are working within the Forest Service's own system to appeal the first round of appraisals. They argue that it's unfair to compare nearby private lands to the Forest Service cabins because private owners are held to far fewer restrictions on their development rights. In addition, the cabin holders contend that on a per-acre basis, other forest uses-such as mining, logging and grazing-get a freer ride than they do.
The reappraisal process could take another year. So, sympathetic members of Congress-notably Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Reps. Helen Chenoweth and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho-have supported legislative riders that prevent the Forest Service from raising the Sawtooth's cabin fees.
"It's legitimate and right that the Forest Service is pursuing a fair return on the use of our public lands," says Craig. "But we also need to look at the practical effect of these policies, and in the Sawtooths I'm disturbed by what I see. Huge and sudden increases in the amount people are required to pay will only serve to drive middle-class owners from the land. We don't want to see this area become the exclusive reserve of the wealthy. These are, after all, public lands."
For most politicians, a choice between constituents and the Forest Service is hardly a choice at all. "The Forest Service is a popular enemy for this state and the public, so elected members will always come down on the side of their constituents," says former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus (D).
Many observers suspect that a middle ground should be easy to find. LeVere of the Forest Service says he's sentitive about the financial pressures on retirees, and adds that he and his colleagues aren't eager to crack down on families they've known for years. For his part, cabin holder Mead says he's not opposed to higher fees, just to the current proposal's exorbitant ones.
The Ketchum Idaho Mountain Express editorialized, "We doubt the average American is going to shed any tears over the fact that the price for a private second home in one of the most beautiful places on earth is going to go up. They will also shed no tears over the fact that for many, many years, the [Sawtooth] lease holders were exempt from paying fees related to the full value of the cabin sites. That said, the Forest Service and the owners should sit down and negotiate.... There's a win-win solution to be found if tempers can be cooled enough to find it."
Mead and LeVere agree that Congress will ultimately need to resolve the issue. "I don't want to have to bill folks at these higher rates if the fee process is going to change," LeVere says. "I would hate to see us having to go through an appraisal every few years, because it's costly. And I don't like seeing management by appropriations riders. I'd just as soon get a resolution to this problem."
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