County officials cheer land-use plan

DOVER-FOXCROFT – A 30-year resource plan for about 426,000 acres of Plum Creek Timber Co. land in unorganized territories between Jackman and Greenville will be filed with the Land Use Regulatory Commission by late March.

The plan, presented Tuesday to the Piscataquis County commissioners, spells out the company’s desire to protect and maintain 385,000 acres of its working forest, conserve and protect 55 of 69 bodies of water on the acreage, enhance recreation and tourism and provide land for economic enterprises.

“Wow, it’s big,” was Commissioner Tom Lizotte’s response to the plan.

“I think there’s something here for everyone,” he said Tuesday.

Elizabeth Swain of Portland, a Plum Creek consultant, said during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting that the resource plan came as a result of questions that surfaced three years ago, after the company announced it would sell 89 camp lots on First Roach Pond.

A lot of questions centered on “what’s next,” she said.

The plan, still being fine-tuned according to Swain, was presented to county commissioners because company officials want to make sure county services aren’t adversely affected.

Swain said the resource plan centers on the company’s land around Moosehead Lake because this area has much recreation and development. It also is surrounded by land owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club and the state, among other landholders, which provides a chance for some “exciting interaction,” she said.

About 97 percent of the 426,000 acres will be in some kind of conservation or protection, Luke Muzzy of Greenville, another company consultant, said during the meeting. Muzzy said the purpose of the plan is to create a predictable pattern of development and conservation, to preserve the working forest and maintain the uniqueness of the region.

The plan includes no residential development on the 385,000 acres for at least 30 years, the consultant said. “At the end of the 30 years, all LURC has to do is hit a switch, and it will go for another 20 years,” he said.

The company is offering to enhance recreation and tourism by granting an easement to 71 miles of the interconnecting snowmobile trail system and a 43-mile easement to create a peak-to-peak, nonmotorized recreation trail that would loop around Moosehead Lake, Muzzy said. Plum Creek is willing to work with the state to establish public access to the trail heads and will make land available for tourism, he said.

As to the conservation and protection of the bodies of water, Muzzy said 55 of the 69 lakes and ponds have no or little development now, and these will remain undeveloped. The 55 pristine ponds represent 79 miles of shorefront and 4,800 acres that would remain in conservation easements, he said.

The company plans to develop around 14 ponds, but at the same time, would place about 70 percent of the shorefront in permanent conservation, Muzzy explained. Fewer than 1,000 new lots would be offered for sale over a 10- to 15-year period, he said. Forty percent of those lots would be clustered on backland 5-acre parcels and the rest would be around the 14 ponds. All of the lots will be near existing development, he said.

In addition, the resource plan provides for the sale of 30,825 acres around Roach Pond in East Bowdoin College Grant, Shawtown and Township 1, Range 12 to the state for conservation; has provisions for small-scale limited commercial development near existing development; has a donation of land for affordable housing; and includes the sale of a piece of land for development of a resort.

Muzzy said that everyone says the region needs a destination resort, so Plum Creek will set aside land in Lily Bay for that purpose. He said the state is working with local and company officials to identify what type of resort is needed.

What it will not be, he said, is an “exclusive enclave.” The land would be offered for sale to the developer whose idea best fits the region’s needs.

“I think it’s [the resource plan] going to create real good opportunities for Greenville and Jackman,” Muzzy said. He said the plan could increase the year-round population.

“Greenville was poised to grow and become an economically sustainable community or alternately wither, contract and come apart,” Swain said. She said the region has a dwindling population that not only affects the town, but also the school and local hospital.

The plan has the support of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council, according to Mark Scarano, executive director.

“You really have taken into consideration the needs of the area,” he told the Plum Creek representatives during the meeting. He said the company was not only a good employer, but also a good corporate citizen.

The economic benefits include job creation, new tax revenue from industry and tourism, affordable housing, long-term economic gains and long-term timber harvesting, commissioners were told.