DOLLARS AND DEVELOPMENT

Plum Creek is not seeking to rezone for development land it owns around Moosehead Lake because it wants to remake the Maine landscape or to bring more tourism jobs in the area. The company is seeking the change – which would allow resorts and hundreds of house lots – to make money. With this in mind, the Open Space Institute has come up with a useful financial model to help the public evaluate alternatives to the massive Plum Creek development proposal.

Last year, Plum Creek applied to the Land Use Regulation Commission to rezone, through a lake concept plan, about 10,000 acres to allow for two resorts, 975 house lots and three campgrounds, an industrial park and affordable housing. Nearly 11,000 acres of shorefront land would be set aside under conservation easements for at least 30 years. The remaining 400,000 acres owned by the Seattle-based company around Moosehead Lake would remain in timber production.

At three public sessions held by LURC, the predominant theme was that the proposed development, which stretches from Roach Pond east of Moosehead Lake to Long Pond near Jackman, was too spread out and too far from towns that might get an economic boost from it. Plum Creek is currently revising the plan and expects to submit a new version next month. It is expected that the development will be more clustered and closer to towns, although the number of house lots is not expected to be substantially smaller. The easements are also expected to be permanent, not just for 30 years.

According to an analysis done by the Open Space Institute, a New York land conservation group, and Industrial Economics of Boston, with help from the Margaret Chase Smith Center at the University of Maine, Plum Creek could build between 447 and 800 lots under current LURC rules without a zoning change. Using an average of 623 lots, the company could earn $50 million without the lake concept plan, according to this analysis.

If Plum Creek’s original plan were approved, the company would make more than $86 million. That means the zoning change, which would allow development to occur more quickly, is worth more than $36 million to the company, according to the model.

The question then becomes what changes can be made to the plan while keeping it financially attractive to Plum Creek, says Thomas Walker of Industrial Economics. It is likely that a plan from the Natural Resources Council of Maine, that includes just 300 to 450 house lots, most of them away from the water, won’t meet that financial objective.

LURC’s role is not to consider Plum Creek’s potential financial gains but whether it meets state criteria, including a demonstrated need for the development and that conservation measures adequately offset the development. The public, however, will consider financial gain and public opinion matters for a lot of reasons, so being able to model alternatives to the Plum Creek plan is especially helpful.