OLD TOWN – City residents and others from communities near the lower Penobscot River area had a chance Thursday evening to offer opinions and suggestions about a plan to map local green space during a forum at Old Town High School.

Three staff members from the nonprofit organization Trust for Public Land discussed the Penobscot Valley Community Greenprint project with about 60 people.

The TPL is based in San Francisco. The Maine office is in Portland.

The plan will map green spaces with an eye toward how those spaces can be best preserved for current uses such as hunting, hiking and farming and also for keeping the land undeveloped in the future.

The TPL would come up with maps and models using its Greenprinting technology. Those maps and models and eventually an action plan would be presented to local towns and cities, which would then decide how and if the information will be used.

“We want to look regionally but also think about what works for your municipality,” said TPL staff member Kelley Hart, who is based in the Washington, D.C., office.

The 12 communities involved in the project are Bangor, Brewer and Old Town, and the towns of Bradley, Eddington, Hampden, Hermon, Holden, Milford, Orono, Orrington and Veazie.

The TPL is currently in Phase I of the project, during which staff members conduct interviews and take public comment at events such as Thursday’s meeting and another held Wednesday in Hampden. During this three to four month phase the TPL also will survey 1,000 randomly selected residents in the area, conduct finance research, and begin data collection.

In Phase II, TPL staff members will construct maps and models of the area and come up with an action plan for maintaining the green spaces on the maps. A steering committee of about 30 people, or about two from each town, and a stakeholder group of 40-50 individuals, will provide input.

TPL staff member Brenda Faber, who is based in Colorado, said the group constructs its maps and models with Geographic Information Systems to “make informed strategic decisions about land conservation and resource protection priorities.”

The two-part process of developing a Greenprinting model starts with a top-down look from 10,000 feet in which town and private boundaries are ignored, to see where the green spaces are. The second part looks at the space from the bottom up, laying in boundary lines.

Attendees broke into groups in which they discussed what they wanted out of the project. The suggestions included maintaining wildlife corridors, protecting working farms and forests, curtailing sprawl, preserving access to land and water, and ensuring the hills and vistas around the area, such as the Chick and Lucerne hills, are maintained.

“What you’re doing tonight is helping us design this model,” Faber said.

Several attendees also emphasized the importance of including landowners in the process. That will come, the TPL representatives said, when the towns receive maps and recommendations and decide what to do with them.

jbloch@bangordailynews.net

990-8287