The bill replaces the seven-member Land Use Regulation Commission with a new nine-member Maine Land Use Planning Commission.
Gov. Paul LePage today signed a bill that does away with the organization that’s been overseeing land use and planning in Maine’s unorganized territories for the past 40 years.
LD 1798 replaces the seven-member Land Use Regulation Commission with a new nine-member Maine Land Use Planning Commission, and sets other changes in motion.
The new commission’s mission goes beyond that of LURC, which the Legislature created in 1971 to serve as the planning, zoning and permitting authority for the state’s more than 10 million acres of unorganized territory.
The new commission will have a role in encouraging economic development, as well as conservation. “The signing of L.D. 1798 provides a great opportunity to set aside old battles that often pitted landowners against those who see the Great Maine Woods as a public good,” says Conservation Commissioner Bill Beardsley in a statement.
The commission will be a division of Maine’s Department of Conservation. The changes are scheduled to go into effect in mid-August.
