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Q: Should developers have to “trade” land and/or profits for the right to build?
Scott K Fish
This is a tale of two private property owners in Maine: Roxanne Quimby and Plum Creek Timber Co.
Reporter Thaddeus Herrick, Post and Courier (4/29/07), writes, “Quimby sold Burt’s Bees in 2002 . . . for $177 million (she retains 20% ownership) [and] wants to assemble about 100,000 acres . . . to create a [Maine] national park. She . . . has amassed 80,000 acres so far.
“Quimby proclaimed . . . her land would be off-limits to logging, hunting, and motorized vehicles, including snowmobiles. She is unapologetic. ‘I don’t have to argue the environmental merits of anything,’ Quimby says. ‘I own it.’”
Plum Creek Timber Co. owns 907,000 acres around Moosehead Lake. Plum Creek’s idea is to develop 2% of their land as house lots and a resort. Unlike Roxanne Quimby, Plum Creek has been forced to argue the environmental merits of its plan—in spades—since mid-December 2004.
Why the different treatment for Quimby/Plum Creek? Plum Creek wants to develop its property. Quimby wants to transfer her undeveloped land to the federal government. Current thinking among Maine’s environmental elite in government, the mainstream media, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is: Quimby’s purpose is nearer to heaven. That is, government land used for environmental purposes is superior to private property. And where government ownership is impossible, environmental land use regulation through government central planning is next best.
Maine is beautiful, in large measure, because of its tradition of private land ownership/stewardship—95% forestland, 90% privately owned. Instead of encouraging that tradition, Maine promotes the opposite, using the environment to overregulate private land until the best option left for private property owners is to sell out to government/NGOs.
It’s evident. The Land Trust Census (2005) ranks Maine No. 2 for total acres of private land “conserved” in the previous five years; No. 6 for having the most land trusts. Multimillions of tax dollars through federal/state programs leveraging multimillions from wealthy NGOs are used perennially to flip private property to government.
Maine uses central environmental planning to control developers through municipal comprehensive plans, shoreland zoning, wetland mitigation, and telling the developer who wants to build homes on his 100 acres he can if he gives government an additional 100 acres for “green space.”
Plum Creek offices were damaged twice by eco-vandals; Jonathan Carter declared war on them; they’ve sold/donated 400,000 acres for environmental reasons; they’ve spent years seeking LURC permitting approval while tax-exempt NGOs hammer Plum Creek in the press. “Plum Creek’s . . . plan . . . threatens Maine wildlife . . . habitat to a degree that’s unacceptable,” said Kevin Carley (Maine Audubon).
Why is Quimby escaping similar scrutiny? Before transferring her land to the feds, why shouldn’t the Maine Snowmobile Association, Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine have a “LURC” where they can protest Quimby’s plan? National forests are threatened by disease, insects, wildfire. Why isn’t government reviewing Roxanne’s impact on wildlife habitat?
John Adams said property rights are as “sacred as the laws of God.” But in the eyes of Maine’s environmental elite, Roxanne’s plan is nearer to heaven.
Sean Faircloth
Say I want to develop a pig farm on my property. Why should anyone stop me in a free market? Turns out Bangor citizens already did. Bangor has long had a zoning board which designates certain areas for certain uses with certain rules. Land use laws are not new; they have existed for a century.
Now, take Plum Creek’s Moosehead plan. Plum Creek is, perhaps, America’s largest private landowner. Their CEO took home about $5.8 million in 2005 alone.
Plum Creek, powerful as a small nation, seeks to create major vacation home developments. When Plum Creek bought here in 1998, CEO Richard Holley (the $5.8 million man) said there were “no plans to sell off . . . the lands for vacation homes, camps, or other development.”
Plum Creek now seeks to change existing zoning for vast tracts from “management and protection” to “development zone.” For half of Maine (mostly wooded), the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) is the zoning board. When seeking a “concept plan,” which is what Plum Creek must do to request these changes, LURC required conservation set-asides—something it’s done for almost four decades. Nothing “new” there.
Just because Plum Creek is a giant corporation, doesn’t make their proposal bad or good. To their credit, Plum Creek isn’t opposing set-asides. In almost 40 years, LURC has approved the vast majority of concept plans. In fact, the real issue isn’t set-asides. The real issue? How does Maine address new development of unique resources—such as Maine’s largest lake, in the heart of the largest undeveloped forest in the East? Plum Creek hired thoughtful locals like Luke Muzzy, who cares deeply about Maine, to make their case. They’ve modified their concept plan and may modify it more.
Bill Townsend, a great Mainer, was Natural Resources Council of Maine president when LURC was created. Bill reminded me that, at statehood in 1820, the north woods were owned by the state on behalf of Mainers. In the late 1800s, the state sold the land—cheap—often to the well-connected. Maine people lost title to our north woods. Simultaneously, a unique tradition of hunting and fishing camps grew. That tradition must continue—in an environment that is the Maine experience, not a New Jersey experience. If Moosehead becomes like the Poconos, tourists won’t drive all the way to Moosehead.
Mainers need jobs. Plum Creek offers construction jobs now—at least service jobs, long-term. They know, if they do anything like what they propose, they’ll make huge profits. Profits are good motives, but states have additional goals.
Let’s not dupe ourselves into thinking this billion dollar corporation (or any other) is a “victim” because Maine has zoning laws—a concept upheld by courts for a century. Instead, let’s negotiate from strength to achieve both economic development AND conservation of the unique resources that attract people in the first place. In all our land-use decisions, Maine must proceed in a way that wins for Mainers today, and 20 years from now. I’m confident we can.
