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By ALAN CROWELL
Staff Writer 11/26/2007

Staff Writer

A plan to rezone roughly 400,000 acres in the heart of the North Woods for the biggest development project ever proposed for the region will go to public hearings next month after what has already been a tortuous journey.

Plum Creek's concept plan for its Moosehead Lake tract, which calls for creating about 1,000 house lots, along with two resorts with a total of 1,050 accommodation units and 190 employment housing units, would be the largest in the history of the state if it is approved. It would also conserve more than 400,000 acres.

The plan to allow development around Maine's largest lake, a Mecca for sportsmen and tourists for centuries and a place where Henry David Thoreau canoed and tramped, has ignited a fierce debate.

Proponents say the plan would deliver a much-needed economic boost to an area that is losing jobs and population, but opponents, including environmental advocacy groups, say it would inject sprawl into a unique and revered landscape.

More than two years since the first version of the plan was submitted in April of 2005, Catherine Carroll, director of the Land Use Regulation Commission, said her agency still receives tens of e-mails, letters or phone calls every day on the plan.

The commission has scheduled four hearings, including Dec. 1, in Greenville; Dec. 2, in Augusta; Dec. 15, in Portland; and Dec. 16, in Greenville.

Carroll said the hearings will take place over a wide geographical range to make participation easier for people who don't live near Greenville.

The proposal is big both geographically and in and the enormous task of reviewing the documents involved.

"We are able to keep up with it but it is taking an exorbitant amount of our time and resources," said Carroll.

Since Plum Creek first submitted the plan it has been revised three times. Carroll said Plum Creek has responded to comments from LURC staff and other reviewers and made significant improvements, but she said those revisions have clearly not addressed everyone's concerns.

Among those with the strongest objections are environmental advocacy organizations.

Cathy Johnson, North Woods project director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said the latest edition of Plum Creek's plan still amounts to sprawl.

"There will be subdivisions all over the place, there will be these two big resorts and there will be developments in areas that are prized for their unspoiled character," said Johnson.

It will also set a negative precedent for all of Maine's Unorganized Territories, she said, an area that encompasses about 10.4 million acres, roughly a quarter the size of New England.

Plum Creek, a real estate investment trust with about 8 million acres across the United States, bought the land around Moosehead in 1998 for about $200 an acre, a price that was much lower than it would have been otherwise because the land was not zoned for development.

Plum Creek's plan depends on changing the zoning of high value land to allow development and Johnson said the Land Use Regulation Commission, which oversees land management in the unorganized territories, can only approve it if the proposal will have no "undue adverse impact."

Johnson said, however, that Plum Creek's plan is simply too big and would have too drastic an effect on the character of the remote area to pass that test.

Including employee housing, Johnson said the plan calls for 2,315 accommodations, not including five new commercial development districts.

"Pulling commercial development out of Greenville and sort of scattering it around is basically the definition of sprawl," said Johnson.

Development on that scale will also affect wildlife by increasing traffic, runoff and erosion, she said. Species that will be hurt include native brook trout and the Canada lynx, said Johnson.

Moosehead Lake is now a place that offers primitive recreational opportunities -- camping in remote forestlands and canoeing along the shores of an undeveloped lake, said Johnson.

The ability to engage in those increasingly rare outdoor experiences will be lost, said Johnson, in favor of golf courses and tennis courts.

"If you want tennis, you don't need to come to Maine's North Woods to do it," said Johnson.

Beyond the broadly visible plans for development, Johnson said there is cause for concern in the fine print.

The plan proposes to change standards that now apply to development in the unorganized territories.

In Plum Creek land, for example, Johnson said the plan calls for allowing homeowners to clear a view corridor.

Currently, the land use commission's regulations do no allow that.

"We are very concerned with this whole idea of setting up two parallel sets of standards," she said.

Plum Creek spokesman Luke Muzzy, a native of Greenville, whose family has lived in that town at least five generations, said the plan would bring much-needed economic growth and predictability.

"I have watched a lot of families leave this area because they didn't have jobs and a lot of these families had the same kind of roots that I have," said Muzzy, who said he has seen the population drop by more than a quarter in the past 25 years.

The people are as much a part of the character of the area as the natural beauty, and he said the sort of development Plum Creek is proposing fits well with the Greenville community and traditional economy of the region.

"There has always been development up here. All the places we are proposing development, there is development already," said Muzzy.

What is different about what his company is proposing, is that it is planned and predictable over the next 30 years, he said.

"The whole centerpiece of this plan is over 400,000 acres of land will be off limits to development forever and open for public recreation," said Muzzy.

Those conservation easements also allow for the continuation of logging, which, besides tourism, is the region's other major industry, said Muzzy.

The development called for in the plan will also take place gradually over the next three decades, said Muzzy, and amounts to roughly the same pace the region has already been experiencing.

He said Plum Creek's proposal to allow people to view scenic areas from their homes just makes sense.

"We feel that selective clearing that is properly done will allow somebody to have a view," said Muzzy. He said people also need to understand that while Plum Creek's plan calls for land to be rezoned, before construction takes place, plans will still go have to meet regulations.

"This is not the end of it. The public will be very involved as we go forward," said Muzzy.

Alan Crowell -- 474-9534, Ext. 342

acrowell@centralmaine.com

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