About the Moosehead Region Futures Committee
Since 2005 the MRFC’s mission is to encourage, gather and incorporate area residents’ ideas and expertise to shape and balance the region’s future development, economy, and conservation efforts.
Who We Are, Our Past Successes
In 2005, a small group of local residents got together and formed Moosehead Region Futures when they heard that Plum Creek, a real estate investment trust (REIT) and the largest timberland owner in Maine (and the U.S.), wanted to re-zone the Moosehead Lake Region to become the state’s first large-scale planned development for residential and commercial property. Called The Concept Plan, it was all new, no one knew what to make of it, and it tipped the planning and zoning authority for the Unorganized Territories on its side.
The Concept Plan was submitted to the Land Use Regulation Commission in April 2005. It went through four revisions: in April 2006, April 2007, and October 2007, with the fourth and final round of revisions developed by Land Use staff and consultants.
We participated in four weeks of intervenor hearings that concluded in January 2008. The Land Use Commission asked a Rockwood MRFC member to submit a plan thought to best reflect local business, resident, and recreational needs. The final version of the Concept Plan includes several improvements for which Moosehead Futures successfully advocated. Those who supported MRFC should be proud to know that your ideas and support played a key role in these revisions—working together, we did make a difference!
Moosehead’s Future
Citizen scrutiny of development applications is crucial in minimizing adverse impacts to high-value natural areas that define the Moosehead Lake region. Public oversight could also be crucial in limiting adverse impacts of the commercial and industrial activities that can occur in easement lands, like the wind turbines facilities and accompanying transmission lines.
The next phase of the work by Moosehead Futures is to intervene on behalf of Moosehead area residents and visitors who do not want to see industrial wind facilities ruining our spectacular quality of place and our economic future in outdoor recreation, tourism, and the second home market. We trade on not being like everywhere else!
