Report: Maine’s uniqueness key to development

AUGUSTA – A state task force named to analyze what makes Maine uniquely marketable issued a report Tuesday recommending ways to promote landscape conservation and community revitalization as essentials in economic development planning.

The “People, Place and Prosperity” report calls for tying such efforts together in “an asset-based development strategy” aiming to use Maine’s appeal – as a place to live, visit, work, vacation or retire – as an economic development engine.

“As the rest of the country becomes more crowded and homogenous and polluted, what sets Maine apart – what makes Maine distinctive – our Quality of Place – becomes an ever more important economic asset,” the report by the Governor’s Council on Maine’s Quality of Place declares.

Stressing the desirability of broad public involvement, the report calls for expanding the Land for Maine’s Future program of public land acquisition and access as well as tax incentives for historic preservation.

It also suggests that a hike in the state lodging tax and new state borrowing could be used to support asset-based development.

Funding details were left open-ended at a gubernatorial news conference Tuesday.

“This is a dramatically new way of thinking for Maine people,” the report asserts. “In the old way, Maine’s surroundings were nice but not relevant to economic development. Today, Maine’s surroundings remain nice, but they are now the very key to our economic future.”

The report was formally presented to Gov. John Baldacci by the council’s chairman, Richard Barringer, a professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service who worked in the administrations of three Maine governors from 1974 to 1987 as director of public lands, commissioner of conservation and director of the state planning office.

Quality of Place, said Baldacci, is “Maine’s calling card to the world,” and to focus on it is to “add to our economic development tool kit.”

Baldacci established the council in March in response to a Brookings Institution study of Maine titled “Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places.”

“‘Asset-based development,”‘ according to the report, “refers to initiatives that build upon regional strengths and capacities that stand out from the norm and have the potential to attract economic opportunities.”

Barringer, in his remarks in the State House Cabinet Room, listed “our woods and waters, our open field[s], our historic and cultural heritage, our picturesque downtowns and working waterfronts, [and] our tradition of public access to private lands” as treasures imperiled by “the selling off of our industrial forest, the decline of agricultural lands, the arrival of large-scale national retailers, the spreading out of homes and schools across the landscape, the buying up of coastal, riverfront and lakefront lands and the lack of investment in our downtowns.”

Addressing the Land for Maine’s Future program, the report says: “We propose to continue and expand this program, but at the same time recognize that Maine taxpayers cannot buy everything that is needed. We need to engage private landowners, who are already the caretakers for much of the beauty of Maine, and reward them for conservation and public access.”

In the area of community revitalization, the report touts an intrastate trail system.

“We propose a statewide program to connect all of Maine’s major centers with trails. As President Dwight Eisenhower once envisioned an interstate highway system, we envision a statewide, off-road biking and walking network for all Maine residents and visitors to enjoy.”

As for state funding, the report suggests that “if supported by the industry, no more than a 2 percentage point increase in the lodging tax might be phased in to increase monies for the Tourism Marketing Promotion Fund, provide ongoing implementation grants for regional asset-based investment strategies, and fund asset-based development projects of statewide significance.”

“State bonds could also support investments in projects related to asset-based development.”