Background Summary of Key Events in Plum Creek’s development proposal.

Plum Creek bought over 900,000 acres of Maine land in 1998 and in December 2004 announced their intention to submit a rezoning proposal for 426,000 acres around Moosehead Lake to the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC). It would allow for the largest real estate development in Maine’s history. They submitted their proposal to LURC in April of 2005. Prior to the submission of their application, a group of highly regarded citizens petitioned LURC to place a moratorium on large-scale development in the Moosehead region until LURC could conduct prospective zoning for the area, as called for by their comprehensive plan. LURC denied the citizen petition. They conducted four “scoping sesssions” in August 2005 for the public to present their views on issues that LURC should consider when reviewing the Plum Creek application.

Approximately 1,000 people attended the four sessions and many others submitted written comments. There was overwhelming concern about Plum Creek’s massive development plans. The next month Plum Creek announced that it would soon submit a revised plan. They announced this many times over the next six months. On March 30, 2006 Plum Creek announced that they would be willing to sell some land and conservation easements to conservation groups if LURC approves their development. They started an intensive public relations campaign with a media blitz of newspaper, TV and radio ads touting their “conservation framework.” A month later they submitted their revised plan to LURC. It still includes the development of 975 house lots and two large resorts.

On April 27, 2007 Plum Creek submitted its third version of a plan for rezoning and developing the Moosehead Lake area. This new plan removed some subdivision lots from shorelines and added acres to the working forest easement, but it also increased the amount of overall development, including 2025 housing units. It maintained 975 subdivision lots, kept and expanded two major resorts and doubled the amount of land to be zoned as development to 22,000 acres.

RESTORE and other conservation groups vigorously oppose Plum Creek’s plans to bring sprawl and massive development to the Maine Woods.