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Plum Creek Plan Approval Likely This Week

September 22, 2009 - AUGUSTA -- Plum Creek Timber Co.'s historic development plan for the Moosehead Lake region is expected to win final approval Wednesday, closing the book on more than four years of public debate.

But don't expect to see houses and resorts rising in the woods there anytime too soon.

Potential court appeals, a weak real estate market and the need to win permits for individual pieces of the project all mean it may be several more years before any homes or resorts are actually built.

"It's been a long road," said Catherine Carroll, director of the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, whose staff began reviewing the plan more than five years ago.

"It's final approval, but it's still conceptual. There's still much more to do here in terms of getting down to the details."

The seven members of the land use commission are scheduled to vote during a meeting Wednesday afternoon in Bangor. The commission's staff is recommending approval based on a preliminary vote last spring, when commission members indicated they were satisfied with the latest version of Plum Creek's plan.

While Plum Creek's plan for two resorts and 975 house lots is considered the largest development proposal in Maine history, the plan also is historic as a conservation deal.

If approved Wednesday, future development would be restricted on about 400,000 acres of forestland around Moosehead. It would be one of the largest tracts of protected forest in the state and would connect about 2 million acres of conservation land from Baxter State Park to the Canadian border.

While any appeals of the commission's approval could delay development of the resorts and homes, the conservation deal will take effect – at least temporarily – whether there is an appeal or not. Plum Creek could eventually back out of the conservation plan if an appeal is successful or if it decides to drop the development plan.

DEVELOPER PLANS 'BABY STEPS'

It's unclear when Plum Creek plans to begin development, or which pieces of the development plan would be pursued first. But the company would have 30 years to carry out the plan, and it doesn't appear to be in a big rush.

"We want to get the approvals, then we want to have a good, thoughtful plan on how to go forward into the future," said Luke Muzzy, the company's project manager. "It's going to be done in baby steps, at least in the beginning. We want to do it right. We may partner with others. We may do it ourselves."

Land owners such as Plum Creek typically bring in a specialized company to develop and manage resorts. Plum Creek, however, has already completed one residential subdivision in the area and may create and sell the house lots on its own.

Muzzy acknowledged the real estate market could slow the development but said it has not changed the ultimate plan.

"The economy certainly is different than it was when we started," he said. "But we've always said it's going to be a long-term plan. We knew there was going to be ups and downs, and we accounted for that with a 30-year plan."

The plan about to be approved is a far different one from the plan publicly unveiled by Seattle-based Plum Creek in 2005.

That one also had two resorts and 975 house lots, but the lots have since been moved away from more remote ponds and closer to existing homes and roads. The amount of permanent conservation land, meanwhile, has increased from 11,000 acres in the initial plan to about 400,000 acres, most of which will be protected by an easements that Plum Creek will sell to The Nature Conservancy.

"This is the crucial piece, like a jigsaw puzzle piece that connects 2 million acres of conservation land into the future," said Bruce Kidman, director of external affairs for The Nature Conservancy in Maine.

Without the conservation deal, Kidman said, the 400,000 acres could see gradual, haphazard development in the form of summer homes and small subdivisions.

Protecting the land also will keep development from creeping north of Moosehead Lake into more remote areas, said Alan Hutchinson, executive director of the Forest Society of Maine, which helped negotiate the deal and is designated as the easement holder.

"It's an incredible buffer between the populated southern areas of Maine and the core of the North Woods," Hutchinson said.

'SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING' AN APPEAL

Thomas Kittredge, executive director of Piscataquis County Economic Development Council, said a final approval Wednesday would be long-awaited good news for the residents and the economy in the area. And while the weak real estate market and legal appeals will delay those benefits, they won't stop the project in the long run, he said.

"I think this is something that the Moosehead region needs. I think it's going to be a draw to the community, but it's not going to be built out overnight," Kittredge said.

Several conservation groups continue to oppose the plan, saying there is still too much development in the wrong places.

"There definitely have been a lot of changes and some of them have been for the better. However, we're still disappointed in the approval of the plan," said Cathy Johnson of the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

"What we have now is not a good plan, but just a better version of a bad plan," said Wendy Weiger, a Greenville resident and member of the Moosehead Region Futures Committee.

A planned resort in Lily Bay was the focus of especially intense opposition. Development there and near Brassua Lake is sure to generate another round of protests when, or if, specific construction plans are presented to the land use commission.

An appeal of the commission decision is widely expected to come first, however.

"We certainly are seriously considering the possibility of an appeal," said Ken Spalding, project coordinator for RESTORE: The North Woods. "We will want to see the LURC decision before we make our decision."

Spalding said the development areas are not appropriate, and the conservation agreements are weak.

Carroll, the commission's director, said the likelihood of an appeal doesn't worry her. After four years of formal review and more than 300 hours of hearings, she said, the plan has been thoroughly vetted.

"If it does get appealed, I'm confident that the Attorney General's Office would be able to defend it."

By JOHN RICHARDSON, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, September 20, 2009


Lakes: Moosehead Lake
Regions: Moosehead


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