A word of praise for the often maligned Land Use Regulation Commission: Thank you, commissioners, for a job thoughtfully, responsibly, courageously and well done, and within the law. And thanks, too, to the staff and consultant team who have helped us all through this long, hard slog.

For more than three years, the LURC commissioners have wrestled with a concept plan from Plum Creek, the nation’s largest private landowner, toward a decision that will become the reference point for all future development in Maine’s deeply loved 10.5 million acres of Unorganized Territory. Taken as a whole, the direction they now give Plum Creek will greatly benefit Maine, the local citizenry, the general public and all who value Maine’s quality of place.

It is no longer a secret that ownership of the UT has changed dramatically in the past decade and along with this the motives and interests of its new ownerships. In its report of last December, the Governor’s Council on Maine’s Quality of Place stated that LURC has today entered a new era:

“The largely unbroken, forested landscape of the Unorganized Territory is a magnificent heritage of inestimable value, and LURC today faces challenges of historic proportion. These include changing ownerships and expectations of near-term return on investment, increasing numbers and scale of subdivisions, and development proposals of an entirely new kind and character.”

The council goes on to recommend that LURC planning efforts “proceed in full recognition of the important relationship between all development within its jurisdiction and the economic vitality of the organized service centers that serve its growing numbers of residents and visitors.”

With its unanimous decision on Plum Creek, LURC has taken the first important step to direct development to suitable sites, to protect critical resources and to create a brighter future for the region as a whole. Much remains to be done, but the “end of the beginning” of this new era is all one might have asked for as a result of the commission’s patient and even-handed work.

For those who are disappointed in the commission’s decision, let me list a few of the scores of changes they insist be made for the concept plan to receive approval: Reduce the number of lakes involved from 15 to six; eliminate all development on five pristine ponds, three ponds in the Roaches area, Prong Pond, the Big W section of Moosehead, the north shore of Long Pond, the east shore of Upper Wilson Pond, and Moose River; limit Indian Pond to a set of sporting camps with no house lots.

The list goes on: Shrink the Lily Bay development from 4,300 acres to 1,800 acres, remove it from the Lily Bay highlands where Canada lynx are present, and set up an ongoing monitoring program to address concerns about them; convert all conservation lands to state-of-the-art and enforceable easements that will balance working forest and wildlife conservation, and be executed within 45 days of plan approval; adopt state-of-the-art, hillside scenic impact standards; and require that both the Big Moose Mountain and Lily Bay developments actually become resorts with a minimum number of short-term visitor accommodations (hotel rooms, etc.) to help assure the economic benefits promised.

The commissioners examined every use and resource concern raised in the many public meetings from wildlife to downtown Greenville impacts and now show us how development boundaries will change, how performance standards will be applied, and how conservation measures will be added to meet the high standard of “no undue adverse impacts” on existing uses and resources.

The result is a plan that would re-zone for development some 15,000 acres in nine areas, all of which are either adjacent to existing development, proximate to a major public road, Route 6-15 or Lily Bay Road, or, at Big Moose Mountain, in a location well-suited to a resort organized around nature-based activity. This is combined with more than 390,000 acres and 213 linear, shorefront miles of permanent protection with guaranteed public access.

In this unfamiliar, new world of post-paper industry ownership of the UT, we as residents of Maine could not have asked for more from the commission. Again, we thank you. And thank you, too, to all the many public intervenors whose determined efforts made this decision possible.

Now, it behooves the commission and staff to take quiet time to reflect on what they have learned from all this, how they will go about enforcing their stipulations and how they might better equip themselves and the LURC statute to meet the next onslaught.

Richard Barringer is a research professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, former commissioner of conservation and director of state planning. He is chairman of the Maine Quality of Place Council.