Huckleberries Online

Trillhaase: Cheap Vacation Homes

Posted by DFO

Dec. 10, 2009 10:35 a.m. • 10 comments

Say you had an investment portfolio worth about $252 million. An investment broker offers you a return of 1.7 percent. Would you take it? Hardly. You could do better with a savings account. So why is the state of Idaho satisfied with such meager results? Idaho owns about 157 cottage sites at Payette Lake, including 62 waterfront lots, and 354 lots at Priest Lake. Each year, the people leasing those sites pay $4.3 million. As land values have fluctuated, lease payments at Payette Lake have been frozen for three years. At Priest Lake, they’ve been frozen for two years. Doing that has deprived the state of another $2 million/Marty Trillhaase, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Should the state of Idaho recoup millions of dollars more by raising the lease rates on cottage sites at Payette Lake and Priest Lake?

10 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

ejs on December 10 at 10:47 a.m.
Hell yea!
sue on December 10 at 10:54 a.m.
Absolutely. Talk about welfare for the wealthy, and a lot of them are out of state vacationers, crying poverty. It’s absurd.
Don_Sausser on December 10 at 1:07 p.m.
Sue, there is a little class warfare in your statement. How about the middle class Idahoans that have them? I know two of them.

As to the question, yes, probably should reflect present day economics.
hhuseland on December 10 at 1:08 p.m.
Some families have had cabins on the lake for three generations. If the majority are Idaho residents, I would say that displacing all of those people so that wealthy out of staters could move in with mansions, would be wrong. In some cases, the government shouldn’t always go for the greater good. Perhaps avoiding hardship for a minority is warranted. If, however, these lessees are primarily from out of state, then no consideration is warranted. Idaho owes nothing to non-citizens.
Sisyphus on December 10 at 1:20 p.m.
Yet another good place for a pseudonym. The sole duty of the trustees is to maximize the value of state land for the purpose of education. All the fine folks who have these cabins, and I’m personal friends with several, knew the score when they were built. They don’t own the land, they lease it and they ran this risk when they built. Its the obligation of anyone operating in trust for another to see to the interests of the beneficiaries, which are not the tenants. What’s more interesting is that Wasden is making this a campaign issue. Its about time somebody did but I’m curious why he’s doing so.

I understand this dispute is about to go legal and I confess to little knowledge regarding the legal claims. Tough row to hoe IMO.
Me on December 10 at 1:22 p.m.
Nice leap! Yes charge the ‘rich people’? Or bring the mega-rich IN and get rid of the people who have been there but will no longer be able to afford it.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/jul/26/lake-lot-fees-in-limbo/

I remembered this story because they tried to auction of 2 new sites on Priest at the 5% rate and got no bidders….
Me on December 10 at 1:25 p.m.
Raise the prices and make the leases 35 years - you’ll have plenty of mansions and get rid of the riff-raff (I too have friends - locals - that have cabins).
Sisyphus on December 10 at 1:30 p.m.
I’m confused Me. If there is no market then what’s the argument? If the state can’t get market rate then, well, there it is.
Me on December 10 at 1:50 p.m.
Sis - doesn’t stop them from raising it on those that are already in the cabins that they built. If you can’t sell new lots at the 5% should you raise those already in their cabins to 5%?
wheels on December 11 at 7:14 a.m.
I think they ought to grandfather the ones for people with modest incomes.Local planners have lost control of our lakes.Too big, Too many.They’ve absolutely destroyed CDA Lake.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.