It's standing-room only at the state Land Board meeting this morning, where the big item on the agenda is raising lease rates for state-owned cabin sites on Payette and Priest lakes. A Land Board subcommittee is recommending setting rents at 4 percent of the average appraised value of the lot over the most recent 10 years; currently, rents are set closer to 2.5 percent of the value of the bare land on which lessees build and maintain their cabins, though they've been frozen in recent years amid controversy over possible big hikes. The subcommittee also is calling for premium rents, which are paid when the state leases change hands, to be set at either 10 percent of the gross leasehold value, or 50 percent of the net leasehold value at sale.

Rent for a state lot under a cabin at Priest Lake now costs around $7,000 a year; in 1945, the leases cost $10 a year. With values rising and the new rent formula proposal, those could jump sharply, though the subcommittee's proposal calls for a five-year phase-in of increases.