Decade-old Moosehead Lake development plan is scrapped
Photo / Maureen Milliken
A plan by timber company Weyerhaeuser to develop part of the Moosehead Lake region is being scrapped. Seen here, Route 16 entering Greenville, the largest town in the region, with Moosehead Lake in the background.
A decade-old hard-won plan for a massive subdivision in the Moosehead Lake region is being scrapped by timber company Weyerhaeuser, in a move that will likely keep it from commercial development in the future.
Some 400,000 acres was rezoned in 2009 for the Moosehead Lake Region Concept Plan, which could have included up to 975 houses and two large resorts on 16,000 of those acres.
The plan had been years in the making by timber company Plum Creek, which merged with Weyerhaeuser in 2016. The proposal was fought by conservation advocates and others who didn't want massive development in the Moosehead Lake region of western Piscataquis County. The rezoning was upheld by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 2012.
Weyerhaeuser said in a filing with the Land Use Planning Commission, made 10 years to the day after the zoning was approved, that changes in the economy since the zoning was approved have prompted the move.
The company is asking to have its land returned to a general management subdistrict and resource protection subdistricts, which are largely for agricultural and forest management, the LUPC said in a Friday news release. The petition with the LUPC, which oversees the state's unorganized territories, will be considered on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
“The impact of the 2008-09 recession forever changed the United States development landscape," the company said in a letter to the LUPC. "As a result, and despite our best efforts, the development components under the Concept Plan have not been implemented and no development has occurred.”
Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY), one of the world's biggest timber companies, owns about 900,000 acres in Maine, and 13 million acres in total. It had sales last year of $7.476 billion.
The rezoning to management subdistricts will likely keep the land from being developed. The subdistricts are applied to areas that are appropriate for commercial forest product or agricultural uses and for which future development is not anticipated, the LUPC said.
"In Maine, the M-GN Subdistrict is the most significant subdistrict in terms of size," the news release said. "The purpose of the M-GN Subdistrict is to permit forestry and agricultural management activities to occur with minimal interference from unrelated development. Resource protection subdistricts are established to protect resources like lakes, streams, wildlife and plant habitat, floodplains and other sensitive areas."
Conservation focus remains
In the filing, Weyerhaeuser emphasizes the Concept Plan’s benefits to the Moosehead Lake region, including conservation and trail easements, which are permanent and will not change because of the petition, the LUPC said.
Those easements include 363,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser land protected with the permanent Moosehead Region Conservation Easement; the 29,500-acre Roaches Pond Tract Conservation Easement; a 25-acre donation to Coastal Enterprises for affordable housing; 121 acres of permanent hiking trail easement; a 50-acre land donation for trailheads with easements to access the trails; and the 81-mile permanent easement for snowmobile trails of the Interconnected Trail System.
The Oct. 9 meeting, in Greenville, which will be open to the public, will include a preliminary discussion of options for engaging the local community in the next steps, including possible regional planning. Weyerhaeuser has stated its support for such a decision, the LUPC said in its news release.
It's the second rezoning for a timber company the LUPC has dealt with this month. At the beginning of September the commission gave Irving Woodlands LLC the go-ahead to open 1,923 acres to residential and commercial development in northeastern Aroostook County, and preserve another 16,754 acres as conservation land.
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