AUGUSTA, Maine — Members of a legislative committee on Thursday endorsed competing plans to reform the Land Use Regulation Commission.
Lawmakers on the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee were able to reach agreement on the vast majority of proposed LURC reforms. But lawmakers divided along party lines on whether counties should have the option of withdrawing from LURC — after meeting a lengthy list of stipulations — if local officials were unhappy with the state’s oversight.
The competing versions of the bill, LD 1798, will come back to the committee next week for a final review of the specific language before being sent to the full Legislature for consideration. Several legislators also were absent from Thursday’s meeting.
The key proposals that appear to have bipartisan support on the committee include:
• Expanding LURC from seven to nine members, with eight of the commissioners representing the eight counties with the most acreage in the Unorganized Territory. County commissioners will recommend designees whereas, under the current system, the governor nominates all seven members.
• Requiring all nominees to be reviewed by the legislative committee and approved by the Senate.
• Transferring more minor permitting responsibilities to counties and having the Maine Department of Environmental Protection handle all commercial wind power projects.
• Directing LURC staff to work with counties to develop regional planning and zoning plans.
• Relocating some LURC central office staff from Augusta to offices within or close to the Unorganized Territory.
The “county opt-out” remains a sticking point, however.
The majority report would prohibit counties from beginning the withdrawal process for at least five years after the reforms went into effect. Additionally, counties must adopt a county charter and comprehensive plan, establish planning and appeals boards, and demonstrate the financial feasibility to carry out responsibilities now handled by LURC.
The minority version would not allow counties to withdraw from LURC. Rep. Jeff McCabe, a Skowhegan Democrat who has been heavily involved in the LURC reform debate, said lawmakers were concerned allowing counties to withdraw could have financial impacts on county taxpayers as they attempt to cover the costs of providing the services on their own as well as on LURC’s finances.
The competing versions of the bill likely will spark debate on the House and Senate floor. Some environmental groups continue to suggest that the reforms — and particularly the withdrawal option — will weaken statewide standards and gradually dismantle LURC. The bill has the support of the LePage administration as well as the forest products industry.
Does this mean that Maine will, and wants, to encroach on some of our most beautiful areas of the state of Maine with Industrial windfarms? Location location location stupid…..
No.
This means that we in the UTs want to be able to make that decision LOCALLY ourselves without involving the entire state.
The wind industry is EXACTLY why LURC should go.
Because then the DEP will take over wind projects, and as you well know (unlike LURC) the DEP has NEVER denied a wind power project.
LURC was a premier State agency that provided a fair, open and impartial process for the orderly and reasonable development in the unorganized territories. Plum Creep, a huge corporate developer without a conscience is behind this effort to make changes in the process to benefit their sole interest which is money, money, money at the expense of everything else including people and natural resources.
The way LURC has tied up Plum Creek’s application literally for years, exploited by viro pressure groups to delay, harass and obstruct, has certainly been conscienceless, but Plum Creek is not conscienceless for rejecting their anti-development forced preservationism.
Whatever Plum Creek’s views on the watered down reforms that were supposed to have led to local self-government accountable to local people to replace unaccountable centralized state control but which did not, the revolt against LURC did not come from Plum Creek. Local property owners have been revolting against the heavy-handed suppression of property rights from LURC acting on behalf of the preservationist pressure groups for decades.
People seem to forget that it wasn’t LURC that held up Plum Creek. Plum Creek withdrew their application three separate times in response to broad public concern. LURC couldn’t approve what wasn’t in front of them. Each time PC resubmitted they had to start the public process over because they made significant changes (to their credit they were responding to public concern). Once they submitted the application that would eventually be approved the process moved fairly fast; only took a few months. The decision was appealed and is working its way through the courts. That’s what has really taken so long.
In your opinion, Bill.
Blaming Plum Creek is like the Liberals blaming the Bushs’ for all our problems today. The big land grab hasn’t happened-and it won’t in this economy. And before Plum Creek, there was land available for purchase on the Twenty Mile road for example.
I travel these roads frequently and can tell you that almost all the new place that were recently built-are now for sale. No garbage pick up, no public services like fire protection and plowing are available and all of a sudden, life is more like work!
Let LURC die it’s slow death. It was a brain child of Jym StPierre from Concorde Ma. The group, if you recall, was called RESTORE. He was also aligned with Roxanne. That relationship has changed considerably. Even Roxanne thought him to be too much of a loose cannon. We don’t need Jym, Roxanne, or LURC. Let the people of the North to continue to be good stewards of their lands.
To all the “Bill Ranalls” of this state;
You have the right to your LOCAL planning board that you go to in order to change, build, subdivide and develop.
As a property owner in the UTs, why is my planning board based out of Augusta, and staffed by a group of people with a seemingly constant number of reasons that I don’t have the same rights as the “Bill Randalls”?
Abolish LURC.
DO IT NOW !
There is an easy answer to this. Organize your township into a town if you want local government and a local planning board. Then you can cover the cost of it with your taxes alone. Until then, the rest of the state is paying for it and should have a say in how it’s managed.
Our county taxes will cover the meager amount of money it costs for a planning board without all the red tape and undue influence weilded by you environmaniacs.
Good luck with that. The counties are running on razor thin budgets. I don’t care how “meager” you think the cost will be. There’s only one place where that money is going to come from; starts with a “T” ends with an “X”. In terms of influence, don’t forget County Commissioners are elected. Take a guess how those will be getting financed once there’s a big land use decision to be made. My guess, they’ll be a lot less local control and it will cost a lot more to be a Commissioner.
Can’t be any worse than the environazis in charge now !
Don’t confuse the simple folks with reason.
Kennebecredpine, “Your Taxes” don’t pay squat for the UT’s. Property owners in the UT’s fund their own school system and pay county taxes for public safety. We have very few services, and our property taxes cover those 100%. Investigate before you post gibberish. Gary Savard, T1R1 NBKP.
Personaly, I thought things were headed in the right direction until yesterdays embarrassing work session. Guess we know who is pulling the strings. It was an affront to all the people of the State of Maine and the political process. I can see why Snowe would want to get out of this dysfunction. Can’t ever imagine that I would say this but, I’m going to go register as a Democrat. Time to clean house.
From your previous posts, I figured you for a dem to begin with.
Seems that not many here remember that only two years ago, during the last revision of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, that the enviormentalists from out of state were working their darnedest to turn this state into one big nature park. Their proposal would have eventually meant that anyone living in or adjacent to a UT would lose their lands without compensation.
Is this what you want to see happen? LURC has fallen under the control of outside interests, and it needs to stop now!
I still have not read anything about who will be paying for these changes. How will these changes affect the taxpayers.
Counties should have the right to opt out. Once they have control, tax revenues will stream to the county in lieu of the state. Furthermore, if a county contemplated withdrawal, the state could set up a short term loan process to fund the planning requirements and be re-paid once the authority shifted.
It is essential for the good of the state and the nation to turn back the tide of people exercising control over land and places far from their home base. Small government by local people with access to information and best practices around the world (i.e. we all have access to global data now) have the necessary tools to do the right thing. Humans have inalienable rights (whether from the Creator or mother-earth depending on your beliefs) to make their own decisions and manifest their own destiny.
This is an American core value.