State Board Approves Controversial Land Swap Payette Lake Cottage Sites, Rangeland To Be Traded For Timberland

Idaho’s Land Board approved a controversial swap Tuesday, trading several Payette Lake cottage sites for timberland.

In making the move, Gov. Phil Batt said the state should look into selling all of its cottage sites.

The state owns hundreds of cottage sites at Priest and Payette lakes, where lessees have built cabins. Despite a 1990 state law ordering the state to charge market-rate rents for the sites, rents overall are less than 1 percent of the land’s value.

State officials say market rents would be closer to 2.5 percent of value.

The Idaho Constitution requires the Land Board to manage state lands for maximum return to the school endowment fund.

An economic analysis of Tuesday’s swap ordered by the state found that if the state charged market rents, the return from the cottage sites over the long term would be the same as the return from the timberland.

“Whether or not the trade is a ‘good’ deal for the state should, therefore, be made on other grounds,” the analysis concluded.

The Land Board, consisting of the state’s top elected officials, said it would not be that easy to double rents for tenants who have built and maintained all of the improvements on the land, including the houses.

“We just can’t snap our fingers and raise everybody’s lease rates,” said Attorney General Al Lance.

Diane Plastino Graves, whose $450,000 lakefront lot is among those included in the swap, told the board, “I refuse to pay any more rent. I think the rents are at a point where it is a diminishing return for me.”

Batt said he joined in the board’s unanimous vote to approve the swap “not without some reservations.”

The governor said raising cottage site rents to market level would price some lessees out of their cabins, and selling the sites may be no more disruptive.

“If we don’t have the political will to raise the rents, then we ought to sell them,” he said.

In the current swap, the state would be “breaking faith” with the other parties if it didn’t go ahead, Batt said.

The state initiated the swap through which seven cabin sites and 2,980 acres of rangeland in Washington County will be traded to Evergreen Forest Products. Evergreen will swap about 459 acres of timberland near New Meadows, Idaho.

As part of the deal, Evergreen will sell, at the appraised value, the rangeland and the cabin sites to the people who now lease them from the state. Evergreen will end up with the cash and the lessees will own the land they now lease.

Opponents of the swap include sportsmen worried about losing hunting access to the rangeland.

Current and former state legislators said the state isn’t getting a good deal, and a group called Stop the Swap, organized by Payette Lake landowner Sally Trott, raised those and other concerns.

After the board’s vote, Trott said, “It’s astonishing to me that the highest-ranking officials of our state apparently continue to believe they can continue to violate the law.”

The law requiring market-rate rents was sought by cabin owners in return for being exempted from auctions which allowed others to bid against them when their leases came up for renewal.

State Controller J.D. Williams said he thinks the state will always have some cabin sites, but he said he sees timber as a better bet.

The state Lands Department is good at managing timberland, Williams said, and timber prices are likely to increase.

Plus, he added, “I really like timber because it creates jobs.”

, DataTimes