Timber company dropping hotly contested Moosehead development plan

[jpak]

https://www.pressherald.com/2019/09/27/timber-company-asks-to-terminate-massive-moosehead-lake-development-plan/

The timberland company Weyerhaeuser is asking to terminate a massive rezoning plan for the Moosehead Lake region that was the focus of years of debate and regulatory battles over development in Maine’s North Woods.

In a filing this week submitted precisely 10 years after the original rezoning, Weyerhaeuser told the Land Use Planning Commission that the company wants to end the development and subdivision zoning rights for nearly 1,000 house lots and two resorts near Maine’s largest lake. The land was rezoned for development in September 2009 as part of the contentious Moosehead Region Concept Plan granted to Plum Creek Timber Company, which merged with Weyerhaeuser in 2016.

“Unfortunately, the impact of the 2008-2009 recession forever changed the United States development landscape,” Weyerhaeuser senior asset manager Luke Muzzy wrote to the commission. “As a result, and despite our best efforts, the development components under the Concept Plan have not been implemented and no development has occurred.”

Plum Creek’s Moosehead Lake development plan was one of the largest and costliest regulatory reviews in Maine history. After years of fierce debate and hundreds of hours of hearings, the then-named Land Use Regulation Commission agreed to rezone nearly 400,000 acres in the Moosehead Lake region.

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