In response to the plan by Plum Creek Land Co. to sell 89 lots on First Roach Pond, some have challenged the public’s prerogative to interfere with Plum Creek’s plans to maximize its profits, the implication of this challenge is that private landowners may do whatever they please with their properties, even if their plans are not in the public interest. I do not agree.

The citizens of Maine have every right to scrutinize such plans, and if they are found to negatively impact our state’s natural beauty and quality of life, deny them. This is not just a philosophical viewpoint: the people of Maine have been paying the majority of taxes for large private landowners since the 1960s.

Most large private landowners put their properties under Maine’s Tree Growth Tax Law, which provides a 75 to 80 percent reduction in property taxes for land that is used for forest production, and left otherwise undeveloped and available for public use. In exchange for this agreement, the burden of the tax revenue that would otherwise have been collected on this property is shifted to the working people of Maine.

Technically, the tax breaks plus interest accrue as a liability against the property, and become due if the land is converted to some other use. In reality, this liability has been capped by legislative action and more liberal escape clauses have been written into the law. With the value of such lands skyrocketing, especially those bordering on Maine’s Great Ponds, the Tree Growth Tax Law has become a developer’s tax dodge.

I’m wondering if Plum Creek will pay the required penalty. In the cynical company statement that announced the subdivision, Plum Creek said that it would put 1,010 acres in a conservation easement. What is this land? Ideal habitat for rare swamp-dwelling creatures? Does the granting of this easement discharge Plum Creek’s responsibility to pay the penalty? Is the land under easement than little but a condiment for those who buy into the development and virtually of no use to anyone else?

Even if Plum Creek pays all the deferred taxes and interest on this property, there is the question of broken trust with the people of Maine.

First Roach Pond is already developed, and another 89 lots may not make that much difference – but nothing prevents any large private landowner from converting land around any of Maine’s Great Ponds to subdivisions, thumbing their noses at the intent of the Tree Growth Tax Law and the people of Maine.

Tom Robinson lives in Enfield.