Rates To Rise For Heyburn Cabin Sites Department Plans To Charge 4.5 Percent Of Fair Market Value

Summer vacation for cabin owners at Heyburn State Park will be more expensive at the turn of the century.

The Idaho Parks and Recreation Department is poised to jack up lease rates for cabin sites in the park.

“We’re trying to run the park better and run it like a business,” said Rick Just, parks department spokesman.

“From time to time, you need to review your rates.”

The rates being charged now were established through negotiations in 1984. The base rate for a secondary lot was $550 a year, and $750 a year for a waterfront lot.

With consumer price index increases each year, those lots now cost $671 and $966 per year.

That’s considerably less than the $3,559 average annual lease rate that cabin owners pay the state Department of Lands for recreation sites at Priest Lake.

Heyburn State Park has 144 cabins within its boundaries and 28 float homes. Of all the leases, 42 percent are held by Idaho residents. The long-range plan for the park calls for phasing out all of the float homes and 28 of the cabins within the next 20 years because they conflict with camping or day-use areas.

The park originally belonged to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which deeded it to the federal government. The federal government gave it to the state in 1908. Cabin sites and float homes started appearing in the 1920s.

The park came under state parks management in 1965 and is the only state park with cabin sites.

At its meeting last month, the Parks and Recreation Board voted to change the cabin lease rate structure to one based on land values. The board agreed to charge 4.5 percent of the established fair market value of the land.

Board members said the change in rate structure was necessary in the interest of being fair to the taxpayers. Board member Bob Haakenson said residents in the area had told him the agency should be collecting at least what property taxes would bring in on the site.

“We need to establish what is a fair return for the state of Idaho,” said Fred Bear, manager of Heyburn State Park.

That’s different from the state Department of Lands policy for its cabin sites. By state law, the Department of Lands must maximize the returns on its property, because the revenue goes into the school endowment fund.

Yet, the state Department of Lands is charging only 2.5 percent of the appraised value of its properties. In fact, the agency is using 1992 assessed values instead of current values because of protests from cabin owners.

The cabin owners at Heyburn State Park don’t want the parks department to charge more than 2.5 percent. They testified to the board that other agencies use that figure and it represents a fair rate of return.

Just said the 4.5 percent rate is not final.

“It’s pretty preliminary,” he said. “Anything that will be final will depend on the appraisal. Then it goes through a public process.”

The new rates are scheduled to be in place by 2000. The board decided to phase in rate increases over three years.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of area.