Idaho’s state Land Board has approved a plan to auction off at least 60 cabin sites at Priest and Payette lakes each year for the next three years. That’s beyond an already-scheduled auction set at Payette Lake for January for 36 cabin sites, six of them vacant. In August, the state auctioned off 59 lots at Priest Lake, with nearly all of them selling for appraised value to the people who had long leased the lots and built cabins on them.

The state endowment has been trying to gradually move out of the business of renting lots on which people build cabins or homes; the practice has led to years of legal fights over appropriate rents for the ground under the lakefront lots. Idaho’s Land Board is required by the state Constitution to manage the endowment lands for maximum long-term returns to the endowment.

The lots selected for each year’s auctions would be randomly selected from among those eligible, state Lands Department real estate services bureau chief Kate Langford told the board. Denny Christenson, president of the Priest Lake State Lessees Association, said the plan doesn’t give lessees any certainty as to whether or when they’ll be eligible to participate in an auction; he called for instead auctioning 80 Priest Lake lots each year for the next three years. That would bring the most money to the public school endowment the soonest, Christenson said. State Lands Department Director Tom Schultz said the Land Board could add additional lots in subsequent years if it chose. “We are trying to bring you a package we can deliver on,” he said. The board agreed to look into a way to schedule all eligible leased lots for future auctions so lessees know what’s coming.

Christenson also told the board that his term as president of the lessees’ association is nearly up, and the new president will be former Congressman George Nethercutt, R-Wash.