This group is helping middle to low income people keep their cabin in the woods
After five years of hard work and inadequate success, why do we continue to fight to replace CUFFA with the Cabin Fee Act (CFA)? As leadership organizations, the National Forest Homeowners (NFH) and the Cabin Coalition 2 (C2) have a responsibility to advocate for all cabin owners throughout the country. It is the NFH mission statement!
While all cabin owners suffer from the anxiety and uncertainty the CUFFA appraisal process creates, there are more than 15% of the cabin owners who are truly harmed by the current appraisal cycle. They were unlucky to be early in the appraisal cycle and often unlucky to be near fancy resort areas, and unlucky to not be able to benefit from the past four years of C2 and NFH’s appraisal educational efforts. These unlucky folks deserve support from all of us! Ten percent (10%) of all cabins will have annual fees greater than $5000 and another 5% simply cannot afford the large increases this round of appraisals generated. Many are being forced to sell and will be lucky if they find a wealthy buyer. If cabins are sold only to the wealthy, what happens to the ‘Cabin in the Woods’ nature of the Program? This is what we are defending as we work to save that 15%.
Without the CFA, our research projects that 8-10% of all cabins will be lost in the next few years, reducing our numbers and weakening the Recreation Residence Program. Will you be just as unlucky in the next appraisal cycle? Regardless of how fortunate you have been in the current CUFFA appraisal cycle, you may get burned in the next. How you fare will be a roll of the dice. For the Program’s future and for individual cabin owners, we must all continue to work together!
Replacing CUFFA with the CFA is good for all cabin owners and the Forest Service as well, since under the CFA the appraisal process goes away! All cabin owners will then have predictable fees, indexed annually for inflation. The Forest Service will save a lot of time, money and administrative heartburn, plus the taxpayers get a fair return on national resources. What’s not to like about all of that?
However, getting a law through Congress takes not only patience but a firm financial commitment. To date, the C2/CFA effort has spent $530,000, predominantly on lobbying costs. Gratefully, we have received donations of $550,000 from our partners, tract associations and individual cabin owners, all concerned about the future of the Recreation Residence Program. However, the remaining $20,000 will not carry C2 through 2013, nor will it cover the necessary work that will follow in monitoring the development of the Rules & Regulation required to properly implement the law. This process will likely take another two years!
No, we are not done but we are making progress and with your help we can all win. So please consider making a financial commitment to the C2 effort. Donations can be made online at the secure NFH website. Sign-In today at www.nationalforesthomeowners.org and click on Donations. Or make donations by check, made out to NFH, but please note “C2 Donation” on the memo line. Send to:
Barbara Warnock, NFH Database Manager
541 West Santa Clara Ave.
Santa Ana, CA 92706
(phone) 714-836-7442 (Fax) 714-547-1774
bwarnock@nationalforesthomeowners.org
Thank You and Thanks for your Support!
Pete Bailey, C2 Steering Committee
