Owners of cabins on Forest Service land face much higher fees

Al and Kay Alsing bought a cabin in Southern Oregon in 1966, paying the U.S. Forest Service $35 a year in fees for the privilege of using national forest land for recreational housing. But they say their tenure may end because the fees, which had risen to $1,000 recently, now are scheduled to rise sixfold, to about $6,250 a year. "It looks like we can't make it," Al Alsing said. A federal law requires the Forest Service to have new appraisals of cabin properties across the nation. It sets permit fees at 5 percent of the raw land value as decided by local market information. In some cases, the rises will be dramatic because appraisals can be decades old. The new appraisals will affect 14,000 recreation residences on national forest land. The fees will begin in 2011 and be phased in over three years. Twenty-five percent of the revenue will be given to the county and 75 percent will go to the federal treasury...AP