Selected Highlights of
LURC’s Draft Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP)

Dated Sept. 2, 2009

The draft CLUP is more than 300 pages long with many important and significant provisions designed to provide Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission with the guidance and tools needed to protect Maine’s unorganized territories.  Listed below are a few important provisions from the draft plan.

Vision:

The Commission’s jurisdiction will retain its unique principal values and will exemplify a sustainable pattern of land uses. (p. 1-2)

Four principal values:

The economic value of the jurisdiction derived from working forests and farmlands, to include fiber and food production, primarily on private lands. This value is based primarily on maintenance of the forest resource and the economic health of the forest products industry.

  • Diverse and abundant recreational opportunities, including many types of motorized and non-motorized activities. Unique opportunities exist for recreational activities which require or are significantly enhanced by large stretches of undeveloped land, ranging from primitive pursuits in certain locations to extensive motorized trail networks.

  •  Diverse, abundant and unique high-value natural resources and features, including lakes, rivers and other water resources, fish and wildlife resources, plants and natural communities, scenic and cultural resources, coastal islands, mountain areas and other geologic resources.
  • Natural character, which includes the uniqueness of a vast forested area that is largely undeveloped and remote from population centers. Remoteness and the relative absence of development in large areas of the jurisdiction are perhaps the most distinctive of the jurisdiction's principal values, due mainly to their increasing rarity in the Eastern United States.

A sustainable pattern of land uses:

  • Retaining extensive forests, undeveloped shorelines, remote woodland character, and a unique collection of natural and cultural resources and values.
  • Providing for a continuation of traditional ways of life, rural communities, sustainable economic opportunities and outdoor recreation for the people of Maine and its visitors.
        • Supporting development in places where the principal values of the jurisdiction are least impacted and in areas identified by the Commission as most appropriate for development.
        • Encouraging long term conservation in places where the principal values of the jurisdiction are most vulnerable to degradation and in areas identified by the Commission as least appropriate for development.

        Background:

  • Development can adversely affect important resources and values if it is not appropriately located.  (p. 4-1)
  • The number of large land sales in the first half of the 2000s exceeded the number of land sales in the entire previous decade.  (p. 4-10)
  • The new landowners have different objectives; rather than using the land to provide a steady flow of wood to the mills, new owners are looking to the land to provide income. (p. 4-10)
  • The number of parcels has grown significantly: the number of townships with fewer than 10 parcels declined by 25%; the number of township with more than 100 parcels increased more than 150%. (p. 4-11)
  • Development in the jurisdiction has grown 66% since 1970. (p. 4-14)  Many seasonal camps have been converted to year–round homes and 69% of the houses in the jurisdiction are now four season homes. (p. 4-15)
  • Development is spreading out across the jurisdiction:  Approximately 50% of the new houses are not located near service centers.  (p. 4-15) 
  • Two-thirds of the new development was not reviewed by LURC for the appropriateness of its location due to exemptions in the law.  (p. 4-18)
  • The Commission’s rules are currently not specific enough to ensure that the negative impacts of hillside and ridgeline development are minimized. (p. 4-43)

Policies:

  • Direct most development to areas near service centers and maintain other areas for traditional uses, including forest management. (p. 4-35)
  • Protect the values of the jurisdiction that draw residents and visitors to a unique array of recreational experiences, paying particular attention to high value natural resources and remoteness, where they exist.  (p. 1-11)
  • Encourage diverse, non-intensive, and non-exclusive use of recreational resources and protect primitive recreational activities in certain locations. (p., 1-11)
  • Regulate land use activities to protect habitat, ecosystems, food sources and other life requisites for wildlife species to maintain biodiversity in the jurisdiction. (p. 1-11)

Implementation.  The Commission will:

  • Identify areas in the jurisdiction that are least appropriate for development. (p. 7-2)
  • Address the effects of exemptions to the Commission’s process for directing development. (p. 7-2)
  • Review the uses allowed (including houses) in the general management zone (which covers approximately 80% of the area.) (p. 7-2)
  • Address issues associated with using private roads to access development. (p. 7-3)
  • Adopt new standards to limit the adverse impacts of hillside and ridgeline development. (p. 7-3)

Prepared by NRCM, 9/15/09

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