Thirty years ago, I got my first planning job at the Greater Portland Council of Governments. The buzz at the time was a new study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development titled “The Cost of Sprawl.” Many of us went on to deal with this issue in different ways throughout our professional careers.

We had more success highlighting the problem than addressing it. Some 150,000 housing units have been built in Maine since that time, including 20,000 seasonal units, much in what the Brookings Institution found to be “unplanned, haphazard suburban development.”

The answer to sprawl is easy to conceptualize – build in the town centers, preserve in the country – but difficult to implement. The reason is that land is not just a public resource. It is also a private bank account. The farmer’s family sends the children to college by selling off one lot at a time. The woodlot owner retires by selling off enough land to pay for a small home. It is impossible, politically, morally and legally, to deprive through regulation a rural landowner’s ability to build upon his or her land.

There have been many creative efforts to overcome the dilemma. Transfer of development rights programs have been set up to allow developers to buy easements from rural landowners in order to develop in-town lots with higher densities. In practice, these have proved complicated and impractical.

Plum Creek offers an answer to this problem with its proposal for development and conservation around Moosehead Lake. It owns both the in-town and the rural land. The transfer of development rights can be effected within a single ownership. Here it is possible to have new development and to conserve at the same time.

To their credit, the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) recognized the opportunity. Rather than simply opposing the project in a knee-jerk fashion, the NRCM created its own conservation and development plan for the Moosehead region. Then, to Plum Creek’s credit, the company responded not just once, but three times with amendments bringing its own plan in closer proximity to the NRCM plan by reducing lakefront residential development, reducing remote development and increasing conservation areas.

The result is an ideal project. On a 400,000-acre site, Plum Creek proposes to conserve 380,000 acres and develop only 20,000. There would be 975 lots and 1,050 resort units on 5 percent of the total acreage. The conservation lands – the size of two Baxter State Parks – forever prohibit residential development and forever maintain public access. The easements allow for the continuation of sustainable forestry activities and, in some places, alternative energy activities such as wind power. There are 150 miles of trails for snowmobiles, mountain hiking, cross-country skiing and mountain biking.

The project will do much to sustain the rural community of Greenville. It will create 685 needed new jobs, paying on average $33,000, and up to 100 affordable housing units.

When I look at the original NRCM plan and the current Plum Creek plan side by side, they are very close.

If the Plum Creek plan is turned down, will the NRCM plan be implemented? Not likely. The Land Use Regulation Commission cannot take 380,000 acres and tell the owners that they can never develop their land for the reasons mentioned earlier. Sadly, we can predict what will happen because we’ve seen it so many times before. The land will be sold off, first in large chunks, then in smaller ones, then smaller ones still, and finally in lots. Houses will pop up at irregular intervals. Then the development will fill in. We know the pattern. It’s called the Maine coastline.

Do not fool yourself into thinking that if Plum Creek goes away, the land will remain undeveloped. The demand for houses in the north woods is strong. In my job I travel throughout rural Maine and talk to landowners from Machias to Patten to Bethel. All know about or are involved in plans to convert woodlots to house lots. Retiring baby boomers will only increase the pressure.

LURC has just approved more than a thousand second homes for Saddleback and the Katahdin areas on a fraction of the acreage involved in the Plum Creek plan. More is on the way. These projects will not add to conservation lands or to the stock of conserved affordable housing.

The Plum Creek plan represents a unique opportunity for Maine. Thanks to the environmental movement, the plan has been improved. Now it’s time for Maine to declare victory, approve the project and enjoy the new jobs and conservation areas that the project will create.

Frank O’Hara is vice president of Planning Decisions, a public policy consulting company in Hallowell.