Take a stand, LURC

For the first time since 1983, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commision is in the process of reviewing and updating its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the commission’s primary planning and policy document. The contents of this document will shape decisions about land and resource use for perhaps the next 15 years, at a critical time in Maine’s development.

At 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 21, in Augusta, LURC will begin discussions on how to further revise the comprehensive plan. What must be kept in the forefront of the discussion is the number of businesses in Maine, particularly small, family run businesses, that depend entirely on Maine’s undeveloped lands for their existence.

Sporting camps are one such business. The Maine sporting camp is a historic tradition that virtually defines the roots of outdoor recreation in Maine. Sporting camps bring a significant number of tourist dollars into Maine and are a vital part of the state’s recreation economy. Who can count how many small town businesses depend on the money “sports” spend while on their sporting camp vacation? Not to mention the revenue generated by their non-resident fish and game licenses, money that helps maintain our wild resources for all the people of the state.

The revised comprehensive plan has really good language about the adjacency issue as it affects the appropiateness of certain regions for growth. It also thoroughly addresses the issue of ease of permitting for improvements and repairs of existing structures. I applaud these proposed policy adjustments.

The plan also proposes to discourage development in areas deemed least suitable. This is again admirable, but it isn’t enough. The plan must not just “discourage” development in certain areas, it must directly identify and sanction “undevelopable” areas if Maine’s working forest and the people who depend on it are to endure.

I strongly reccomend that LURC insert the following language in the plan’s economic development section: “Identify valuable undeveloped lands and insure these lands will remain undeveloped, sustaining rural forest-based economies that depend upon forest products and recreation.”

The necessities of modern regulation compliance, as well as a faint-hearted economy, have already put a suffocating stranglehold on small family businesses such as mine. We are not likely to survive an onslaught from another corner. If LURC does not take an assertive stand on defining undevelopable areas, the sporting camp tradition and the associated livelihoods of many small business owners statewide stand little chance of survival. Kyle McCaskill Long Lake Camps Princeton