Although denied a year earlier, on their second try Dave and Connie Howell, of Cove, were granted permission by the Wallowa County Planning Commission to build two cabins 11 miles upriver from Troy.

The two four-room cabins will be placed on a bluff high above the Grande Ronde River about 450 feet away from the river, says Wallowa County Planning Director Harold Black. In their application for a conditional use permit to build the cabins, the Howells described them as private accommodations for fishing.

The planning commission approved the second submission at its Feb. 28 meeting. Black has been authorized to draft findings on that decision, and at the next planning commission meeting March 27, when the commission adopts the findings, the decision will go into effect, says Black.

On the original application, denied in October 2010, the Howells proposed two potential sites for the cabins, but put top priority on cabins that would have been much closer, and highly visible from the river.

The Oregon State Parks & Recreation Department, which administers the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act along the Grande Ronde River, denied that initial application, saying that CUP request did not meet statutory requirements. The county planning commission then went on record in support of that decision.

Black says, by law, State Parks has up until one year to arrange to purchase the contested property or the landowner can resubmit its original CUP application. State Parks failed to do so, the Bureau of Land Management tried to step in but got bogged down with appraisal issues, and after one year the Howells submitted their second application, this time focusing on the site more distant from the river.