The increasing rate of development in the Maine Woods is alarming. Over seven million acres of forestland in Maine were sold from 1998 to 2006.More and more of those lands are being carved up. However, the proposal by the Plum Creek corporation for 421,000 acres in the Moosehead region represents the biggest single threat to maintaining the wild character of the Maine Woods for the future.

On April 5, 2005, Plum Creek submitted an application to the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) for the largest residential and commercial real estate development ever proposed in Maine. The company resubmitted the plan with some changes on April 27, 2006. This huge project will still sprawl throughout the wildlands of the Moosehead region.

Plum Creek is running an extensive public relations marketing campaign to build support for their new proposal. The PR campaign is based largely on speculative conservation that is not part of the mitigation Plum Creek is proposing to meet the legal requirement to balance development with conservation. Plum Creek’s proposal is summarized below.

SUMMARY OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT – 2007
Plum Creek’s new development plan for the Moosehead Lake region:
• still proposes development of 975 subdivision lots

• - removes lots from Big W on Moosehead, Indian Pond, those nearest East Outlet, Prong Pond, and the east shore of Upper Wilson
  - relocates some, but increases the lots on Long Pond
  - increases the lots in Rockwood and other areas
  

• still proposes development of two resorts and expands the size of both.

• increases total housing units to 2025
(975 subdivision lots plus 1050 "resort accommodations" - the "resort accommodations" include an unknown number of additional subdivision lots)

• adds commercial zones in Rockwood and below East Outlet

• doubles the development zones from 11,000 acres to 22,000 acres

• includes additional satellite resort zones in remote areas as outlying facilities for the two larger resorts

• increases the working forest easements from 72,000 to 90,000 acres, which would wrap around each of the development zones

• adds the ability to develop energy facilities in the working forest easements on the west side of Moosehead Lake

• includes rezoning 33 miles of shoreline for development

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SAVE MOOSEHEAD
P.O. Box 2118, Augusta, Maine 04338
phone: 207-628-6404
fax - 207-628-5741
email: fen@207me.com