National Forest Homeowners
Cabins
NFH Contacts
Important News About Your Cabin
At the National Forest Homeowners’ annual convention in Vancouver, Washington, the end of April 2007, USDA Forest Service officials explained and clarified several issues that will be affecting you and your cabin over the next several years.
First: The Implementation of the Cabin User Fee Fairness Act of 2000 (CUFFA)
This is the legislation Congress passed two years ago to make sure your cabin fees are based on accurate--and fair--appraisals. To implement this Act the Forest Service must develop new rules and regulations for its staff to follow as well as new instructions for real estate appraisers to use when making appraisals. These will eventually be published in the Forest Service’s Manual and its Handbook.
First steps in what will undoubtedly be a long process will come this spring or summer when the agency releases a package with draft policy revisions, rules, regulations and guidelines. Your local Forest is supposed to send a notice to each cabin owner when these drafts are available for public review and comment. NFH will also be contacting both tracts and individual members with a summary of our concerns and “kudos” from analysis of the text.
When you receive this notification from the Forest Service, NFH or other sources, you and your fellow tract members need to get copies immediately (instructions for downloading from the Internet below.) Read this material carefully. Federal law gives you 60 days to prepare and send comments to the Forest Service. In your comments be very specific about what you feel needs to be changed. Remember that it is just as important to comment favorably on the sections of the proposed text that you like as it is to tell the Forest Service what you dislike. Your favorable comments can keep good material from being lost in final agency revisions.
Only after all public comments are received and analyzed, and Congress has reviewed the agency’s regulatory effort, will the Draft regulations, guidelines and policies be revised and adopted as Final.
Some provisions of the Act are so clear that the agency has little or no wiggle room. Examples of these are:
· a 10-year appraisal cycle;
· 5% of the appraised value of your lot becoming your new base fee;
· Fees for caretaker cabins being no higher than the base cabin user fee for similar cabins at the tract.
Some provisions of CUFFA need to be further refined/defined. Examples:
· defining “related improvements” for your typical lots;
· determining whether a cabin owner (or predecessor) repaid the capital costs for utility services or access installed by a third party;
· the process of phasing in fee increases.
For copies of these documents: You can either 1) call or email NFH, 2) contact your local forest, or 3) obtain copies at the web site for the Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov). You can download the draft package from GPO’s Federal Register location as an Adobe PDF file and then enlarge the type to make these documents much easier to read. Or, you can download this information as a Microsoft Word document by going to http://www.fs.fed.us/im/directives/weekly-issuances. This is the site where all new directives that will be added to the FS Manual and/or the FS Handbook are electronically published for comment. If you want to find the Cabin User Fee Fairness Act it is Public Law #106-291.
If you/your tract need help interpreting these rules and regulations or have questions about NFH’s comments you can Contact Hans Johnson, Executive Director of NFH at nfh2@earthlink.net.
Second: The Inventory of Investments In Cabin Tracts
As part of the process of implementing CUFFA the Forest Service is required to develop a database of all the roads, utilities and other improvements that serve cabins on each recreation residence tract in every Forest. This search is to determine who paid for these services...the Forest Service, cabin owners (or their predecessors), or a third party. Most forests started this process earlier this spring, or will have the inventory process underway by midsummer. You should receive a notice from the District Ranger or Forest Supervisor inviting you to supply information.
If you and your fellow tract members (or your predecessors) paid the capital costs for these improvements, the value of these improvements may not then be included in the appraised value of the typical lot or lots in your tract. In other words, a portion of your base cabin fee cannot be based on investments in tract services or access that were paid for by the cabin owners themselves. It is important that you and your fellow tract members do thorough research to learn everything you can about the improvements paid for by previous cabin owners. Also document who now maintains these improvements because the tract is likely to get “credit” for investments made by others but annually maintained by the tract. For example, cabin owners should be given credit in the inventory for a logging road built years ago by the forest products industry or by the Forest Service, but historically maintained by cabin owners as their means of access to their cabins.
The sticking point comes when a third party made an investment in roads or utilities. The Act provides for a “credit” to the cabin owner if it can be proven that the cabin owner or a predecessor repaid capital costs for installation. Otherwise, the value of investments by a third party will be included in the appraised value of the typical lot, incrementally increasing the amount of your base cabin fee. Differences of opinion between cabin owners and the Forest Service over what constitutes repayment of some kinds of third party investments (especially utilities) are ongoing and will need to be resolved in the rulemaking process.
If there is no evidence to determine who paid for an improvement, the Act states that the agency is to assume the cabin owners paid for it.
Once your forest has gathered all available information from cabin owners, utility companies, water districts, municipalities, counties and other sources, the results of the inventory will be sent to the Regional Forester for review. When it is approved and returned to the forest, your tract association officers may be asked to sign off on the inventory. There is already a significant dispute about the treatment of third party investments. It is possible that other concerns about accountability in the inventory will arise once the Draft rulemaking is available to cabin owners. It is not prudent to commit your tract prematurely to an inventory that may need to be revised once these issues about improvements are resolved by Final rulemaking.
If you/your tract need help dealing with your Forest on your inventory you can contact Hans Johnson, Executive Director of NFH at nfh2@earthlink.net.
Third: Reappraisal or Peer Review- -Which Is Best For You?
The Act states: “not later than 2 years after the agency formally establishes and adopts new appraisal guidelines, permit holders will have the opportunity to request that the agency either:
1) Conduct a new appraisal and determine a new base cabin user fee (per the new guidelines); or
2) Commission a peer review of the existing appraisals.”
This means you get a second chance under the new appraisal rules. The cost of a second appraisal or a peer review under CUFFA is to be shared by you and the Forest Service. Cabin owners requesting a second appraisal or peer review pay 50%, and the agency pays 50%. This is a big improvement over the 100% you were required to pay for a second appraisal under the old system.
If your tract was satisfied with the comparable sales selected for the appraisal conducted under the old system, but there were important errors of fact in the appraisal calculations, you may want to consider a peer review under the new process. In such a review, a panel of appraisers drawn from an “independent, professional, appraisal organization” will study the earlier appraisal, suggest adjustments and issue the panel’s opinion about the proper value of your typical lot.
However, if there were major errors in the appraisal of your tract---particularly badly chosen “comps”---you should consider requesting a reappraisal under new CUFFA rules.
CUFFA requires that a majority of the cabin owners represented by a particular “typical lot” are necessary to request either a peer review or a reappraisal. Before you and your fellow cabin owners make a decision, be sure to review the full appraisal conducted earlier under the old rules. Do not be satisfied with just looking at the “Summary Appraisal” because this document does not provide important details you need to make your decision, such as a full description of the comparable sales that were utilized.
Whatever the outcome of a reappraisal or a peer review, the Forest Service has publicly stated it will not apply any increases in fees retroactively. However, if your fee had been scheduled to decrease as a result of an earlier appraisal under the old process, the agency has committed to giving full credit on future billings for overpayments. The agency is unable to give refunds.
If you are confused by all of this process you are not alone. Some of the processes will be clarified in the agency’s rule making. However, feel free at any time to Contact Hans Johnson, Executive Director of NFH at nfh2@earthlink.net. with your questions.
Fourth: Your Next Permit and Forest planning
Over the next several years, every National Forest will be updating its current Forest Plan, and these revisions will affect the management of these forests over the next 10 to 15 years. A few of these updates have already been completed, and a number of forests are in the process of revising their plans right now.
If there is a regional plan (such as the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan or the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment) local Forest Plans within that region are “tiered” under that regional plan. Each Plan is required to have an Environmental Impact Statement, a Biological Assessment for threatened and endangered species and a “Record of Decision.” Contained in each plan are six major “decisions”:
· Forest-wide Goals and Objectives;
· Forest-wide Standards and Guidelines;
· Management Area delineations, associated prescriptions, goals, objectives, standards, and guidelines;
· Identification of lands not suited for timber production;
· Monitoring and evaluation requirements;
· Recommendations for official Wilderness designation.
NFH strongly recommends that you and your tract get involved in the revision of your local Forest Plan. Visit your local Forest Service office. Ask for a copy of the current Plan as well as the schedule for developing the new plan. Request that your name be put on the mailing list for all documents and notifications about public meetings.
Once you’ve reviewed the materials available, arrange for a delegation from your tract to visit with the Forest Planner to discuss the process, the particular issues that may affect your tract and how you can be involved. (NFH can also provide you a pamphlet with information about how to participate effectively in forest planning.) Make specific arrangements for people from your tract to participate in the initial “scoping” sessions in which the public will help guide the Forest Service toward issues to be examined during the planning process. Plan to participate in all subsequent public meetings. Follow up on all oral presentations with a written summary of the tract’s concerns or your individual concerns. If you live year-round in the area, make the effort to serve on working committees set up by the Forest Service to examine specific issues, especially those directly affecting your tract. And finally, when the time comes for a public comment period on published Draft revisions to the Forest Plan be sure to send very specific comments about both the things you disagree with and those your feel are correct.
Whether your forest is currently being managed under an old or newly revised Forest Plan (or is in the process of revising the plan), your permit administrator is required to conduct a “Consistency Review” for your tract two years before cabin permits are due to expire. Prepare for this review. Read the relevant parts of your Forest Plan, including any subsequent amendments or regional amendments that could affect your tract. It is essential to your eligibility for a new permit that your tract be determined to be “consistent” with all of the Forest Plan’s goals, objectives, standards and guidelines. The key issues for all tracts are the recreation elements of the Forest Plan, the protection of threatened and endangered species, and the restoration and protection of riparian zones. There will also be local issues that are particular to your tract.
Remember that the true test of “consistency” is often in the eye of the beholder. You may feel your tract is “consistent” and fulfills goals, objectives, standards and guidelines of your local Plan, but a Forest Service manager may see the situation very differently. Talk to your permit administrator and to your Forest Supervisor well in advance of their schedule for conducting the Consistency Review. Any differences between their perspective and yours on the degree of “consistency” at your tract might be successfully dealt with before any formal “consistency” review begins.
This same effort to “think ahead” needs to be made with respect to whether each cabin is “in compliance” with the terms and conditions of its current permit. Parallel to the Consistency Review is an individual review of each cabin by the Forest Service to determine that structures, utilities and other activities are in “compliance” with the Special Use Permit issued to the cabin owner. For many of you this will be a new procedure since the Forest Service has not always conducted these reviews in the past. Any cabin found to be out of “compliance” with its permit will, at best, receive a temporary one-year permit when the current permit expires. During this provisional year, the cabin owner must bring the cabin into “compliance”, or face the likely prospect that no new permit for future use and occupancy will be issued. Instead, an order to remove the cabin and restore the site would be issued. In some cases the Forest Service is finding cabin owners out of “compliance” for changes that previous district personnel had either ignored or given explicit verbal permission to. If you find this is a problem for any of the cabins on your tract be sure to contact NFH
All cabin owners in tracts found to be “consistent” with the Forest Plan, and whose cabin is found to be “in compliance” with their individual permit, should receive new 20-year term permits when the current permit expires.
However, a number of forests are already pleading poverty with respect to their ability to conduct the “Consistency” and the “Compliance” reviews in a timely fashion. These forests are threatening to issue temporary one-year permits until such time as funding allows the agency staff to get this work underway. NFH is objecting to this failure to manage in a timely and responsible manner. Contact NFH immediately if lack of funding for these reviews appears to be a problem on your forest. Contact Hans Johnson, Executive Director of NFH at nfh2@earthlink.net.
Fifth: Getting Involved in NFH
The day has passed when you--and your neighbors--can pretend the relationship between the Forest Service and cabin owners will always be comfortable and collaborative. Congress issues directives--and passes laws--that conflict with each other and past directives and laws. At the same time there are current policies within the Forest Service that conflict with past ones. This tug and haul affects the Regional Offices. And the conflicts flow downhill from there all the way to your District Ranger's office. You should expect that you will run into everything from friendly faces to hostile frowns. Don't assume that this week’s friendly face will also be friendly next week. The good old days are over!
If you and your family, friends, and neighbors want to continue to enjoy your cabins for the next 10 to 20 years, you need to make sure that all of you stay informed and involved.
Both the Forest Service and the NFH believe an active tract association is essential to understanding what is happening inside the Forest Service and how it affects your cabin. Several Forest Service people told us during the convention that NFH members “know which fights to pick.” Tracts and cabin owners who are not involved with NFH are, to quote one staffer, like “outhouses bobbing in the lake.”
We in the NFH want to help you pick the right fights. That is why we are asking you to help us build an effective communications tree by:
forwarding this e-mail to every cabin person on your e-mail correspondence list;
sending printed copies to everyone you know who is involved with cabins and who does not have e-mail;
asking all of these people to grow this communication tree by forwarding this report to as many additional cabin people as they know;
With your help, NFH will continue to be an increasingly important central source of assistance and the latest news. We will be adding updates on all of the issues affecting cabins to our website (www.nationalforesthomeowners.org) as new information develops. Be sure to check that site frequently and tell all your family and friends to do so as well. And read your newsletter as well.
If you need help making your tract association more effective, or in setting up an association from scratch, NFH will be happy to work with you. Contact Hans Johnson, Executive Director of NFH at nfh2@earthlink.net.
And if you know people who own or use cabins who are not currently members of NFH ask them to join. The greater our numbers the more fights we will win. Even if we have to keep going to Congress to do so.
NFH wants to help you pick and win the right fights----and keep those outhouses where they belong!