Land Limits

The Legislature’s Agriculture, Forestry and Conservation Committee has held public hearings on four bills designed to restrict the twice voter-approved Land for Maine’s Future program. Three have received unanimous or nearly so “ought not to pass” recommendations from the committee.

The fourth should as well. While the first three, through constraints on participation by land trusts and other private-sector entities, would have had the effect of reducing the buying power of the money approved by voters in 1987 and 1999, LD 348, An Act to Limit State Land Ownership, puts a cap on acreage. Specifically, the law proposed by a group of legislators from Aroos-took, Penobscot, Piscataquis and Washington counties would limit “publicly owned land” in Maine to no more than 20 percent of Maine’s total land area or 33 percent of the land in a county.

There are several flaws with this proposal, the first of which is that the mandated percentage caps are entirely arbitrary. There certainly is a point at which the amount of publicly owned land ceases to be of benefit to the public, both for recreation and for the support of recreation-based businesses, and becomes a drain on the economy. There is, however, no evidence that 20 percent statewide is that point; the county limit fails to recognize the differences that exist among counties in both scenery and economics. Of Maine’s 16 counties, only Piscataquis, with Baxter State Park, even cracks the 10 percent mark in public ownership – pardon the cliche, but this bill truly is a solution in search of a problem.

Second, the bill’s title is misleading, always a bad sign. The limit, as defined in the bill’s text, does not merely count land under state ownership, but includes municipal ownership also. Beyond this unwarranted meddling into municipal affairs, this bill does not merely count ownership, but conservation easements, in which the land remains under private ownership and property taxes (mostly low-revenue tree-growth to start with) are still paid. As more and more paper companies sell development rights to raise cash to keep the mills open, conservation easements will become an increasingly important part of economic development, even economic survival, in Maine. Sadly, this is most true in the very counties LD 348’s sponsors call home.

The third, and worst, this bill runs utterly contrary to the will of the voters. The 1999 bond referendum for $50 million to continue the Land for Maine’s Future program passed with more than 68 percent approval statewide and it passed in every county. Voters across Maine put no restrictions on percentage of public ownership, they made no attempt to tell towns and cities in other parts of the state what they could or could not buy, they certainly did not confuse state ownership with conservation easements. Changes this sweeping to a program established by voters belong back in the hands of voters. Before these legislators turn to the referendum solution, however, they should first find that problem.