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There is a big difference between laws and rules. The legislature creates laws. Then state agencies create their own rules. You could write a book about this.
A bureaucrat decided that the woods industry could no longer float logs down rivers in the spring. Great Northern was forced to build the Golden Road, so named because of the cost. I used to fish at the edges of log booms because that's where the best fishing was. Functionaries can ban anything they want to ban. It is very frustrating to the victims who can no longer work or recreate the way they always have.
This invitation for comment from LUPC sounds nice until you read it the second or third time:
"From: Maine Land Use Planning Commission
Topic: Review of the Adjacency Principle
Last Updated: November 30, 2016
*** Are you a resident or property owner or have another connection to the towns, townships, or plantations the Commission serves? If so, you can help influence the future by telling us what your community or area should look like in the years to come, and where new development should locate.
The Land Use Planning Commission is currently reviewing the adjacency principle, which is a policy that guides where new zones for development can be created. The purpose of the review is to find out if there are better ways to account for different situations when deciding where to encourage new development.
How does the adjacency principle work?
The Commission oversees zoning for unorganized townships, plantations, and some towns in 13 counties and many different regions in Maine, covering roughly half the state (this area is sometimes called the “UT”). Zoning is a map and set of rules that say what type of buildings or uses are allowed in any given place. The goal of zoning is to help avoid conflicts between different types of uses and make it easier to predict how an area will change over time. Planning ahead can make community and business investment decisions easier.
Right now, new homes can be built in most places, but new zones for subdivisions or commercial development need to be within a mile by road of existing development. This policy, known as adjacency, encourages lower tax burdens, keeps land available for forestry, agriculture and recreation, and promotes the health of existing communities. But it is too blunt a tool.
Why review the Adjacency Principle?
•The Commission’s service area is a big place, and a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t always mean new development happens in the most suitable locations.
•Sometimes, additional flexibility is needed to account for site conditions. For example, wetlands or steep slopes in the area may make it difficult to locate new development within a road mile of existing types of development.
•There are some locations that would be a good fit for a new residential subdivision or commercial business for a number of different reasons, but are located farther than a mile from similar types of development.
We want to hear from you!
In order to improve the zoning system, the Commission wants to develop an understanding of the land use needs and desires of people who care about the UT. Are you a resident or property owner or have another connection to the towns, townships, or plantations the Commission serves? If so, you can help influence the future by telling us what your community or area should look like in the years to come, and where new development should locate.
Contact us for more information
For more information about the Adjacency Project, or to receive a paper copy of the survey in the mail, please contact Ben Godsoe at 207-287-2619, or e-mail Benjamin.godsoe@maine.gov."
Nowhere in this tome do we see mentions of the people who actually own it.
"In order to improve the zoning system, the Commission wants to develop an understanding of the land use needs and desires of people who care about the UT."
There are vast and well funded organizations to represent the "needs and desires of people who care". There is ONE organization that represents those who actually own land and live in the UTs.
"A bureaucrat decided that the woods industry could no longer float logs down rivers in the spring. Great Northern was forced to build the Golden Road, so named because of the cost. I used to fish at the edges of log booms because that's where the best fishing was. Functionaries can ban anything they want to ban. It is very frustrating to the victims who can no longer work or recreate the way they always have."
That's a hilarious, but not unexpected, complete misinterpretation - no, a fictional rewrite of history - as to why there are no longer log drives on Maine's wilderness rivers. The logs, shedding bark and detritus to the bottom, effectively rotted in the water cause reactions during breakdown which sapped all of the O2 out of the water systems. Killing the river trout. Proven. Of course, since scientists are all liars and somehow all on the "environmental industry" dole, who knows? There were thousands employed in the log drives years ago. GNP managed to dump thousands of employees when they shifted from log drives to moving pulp overland. Your baloney knows no bounds. Fishing around log booms tended to be as unproductive as it could get. I've got relatives that did the drives on the Allagash. They fished the feeder brooks, since the cover of logs would drive fish out of the river. We had a camp at the headwaters of the Machias. Same thing, even years after the drives stopped. As late at the late '60's there were no log drives down there. Where, perzactly, did you find your honey hole next to a boom? What river and what year? Be careful. The last one was on the Kennebec in '76.
Well I graduated from high school in 59 so I fished the West Branch in the 1950s. I stood on the front porch of Ansel Smith's Half Way House when it was still there. At the mouth of Pine Stream there was a big cast iron bell and it was LOUD. We would ring the bell and the boom scow would come up through the logs. We would put our canoes across the boom scow and they would take us down below the boom house and let us off just above Graveyard Point.
There were still drives in the early 60s when I came home on leave from the Navy. I don't know the year of the last drive on the West Branch, but I was the first private non-company truck across the new bridge at Ragmuff on the Golden Road. Before that bridge was in, I drove the old Ragmuff Road all the way from Kokadjo to Chesuncook village in a 1949 DeSoto before that road was blocked and abandoned. Bert and Maggie had been back from WWII just over a decade back then.
I never saw a drive on the Allagash, but I drove through Baxter Park and out the Telos Gate to run the Allagash back before they shut down that road and gate. They shut down the Dwelley Pond Road because a tree fell across the road and it was declared "too dangerous to keep open". Somebody with a buck saw could have taken the tree out in 20 minutes. Any excuse to deny people access will work for the environmental industry. I used to go out the west gate of Baxter Park and go over to Chesuncook before the Golden Road was there. That road dead ended near Mud Brook back then. We could carry a canoe down to Chesuncook and paddle up to Red Brook which had some very good trout fishing back then.
I have a photo of my sons with their green crusher hats off at ages six and eight, paying their respects at Joe McKeel's grave across from Ramsay Brook by Ramsay ledges on the Allagash. Joe died in a log jam and he was buried in two salt pork barrels end to end. His friends figured that was better than no coffin at all. The Allagash in summer is warm, but Ramsay Brook is ice cold. I have another photo of the three of us diving into the Allagash at the mouth of Ramsay Brook, the cold side of the river. My older son became a grandfather last week at age 51 and my younger son is 49 now. I was born before WWII and am older than dirt, but I hope to canoe with my great grandson even if it's on a pond.
Oh, and all of Maine's large rivers run through industrial tree farms. If you want wilderness, go up and canoe the Mistassinee in Quebec. The Mistassinee and Mistassibee merge to form the Saguenay.
Last edited by Northern Maine Land Man; 03-16-2017 at 05:53 PM..
So they can ban vehicles on the UT? Could they also turn around and bar homesteading type activitys (similar to how you raise hogs)?
The UT that I live in is among the most densely populated UTs. Largely because it was organized for a while, then it was disorganized. [To date 40 or 41 towns have gone through the process of disorganizing] So I do not see it happening here in this UT.
However as mentioned, in the last CLUP part of the debate was to include 'primitive use only' clauses in many UTs, and they did not specify which UTs.
Some [urban] Mainers like the idea of the UTs being primitive and they want it to stay that way for future generations. Without regard for residents who live in the UTs.
This could be interpreted as a feature of the 'rural-cleansing' movement, or as other people call it ''Agenda-21'.
I am a member of a couple different non-profit groups that may present themselves as being pro-rural Maine. [or so you would think] But when it comes to their political lobbying efforts, they may tend to be surprisingly anti-rural. Just this morning I spent 2 hours in a meeting, among the topics were bills in the state legislature. Focusing on 'rural broadband' and 'solar' power. In the discussion and among the 'testimonies' some have already presented, many of these folks are clearly anti-rural.
It presents an interesting dichotomy.
Nobody will admit that they are in favor of 'rural-cleansing' or 'Agenda-21', but when supporting rural Maine, they will define it as helping high population-density communities within the generally rural state of Maine. The low population-density communities of Maine are to be ignored.
When I was involved with Unorganized Territories United, back in the early nineties, the population of the Unorganized territories was over 18,000. The state treasurer's newly released 2018 revenue sharing numbers are out and I perused the towns and territories that interest me. The estimated population of the UTs as of July 1, 2014 was 7,959. We have lost more than 10,000 people from the UTs in the last two decades or 56% of our population.
Moderator cut: An entire paragraph of politics has been removed. Ethnic cleansing? Claiming illegal acts by a President. Plus some inexplicable remark about Senator King wanting to kill people. Beyond belief in a forum about moving to Maine.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-01-2017 at 04:57 PM..
Reason: Incredible!
Moderator cut: An entire paragraph of politics has been removed. Ethnic cleansing? Claiming illegal acts by a President. Plus some inexplicable remark about Senator King wanting to kill people. Beyond belief in a forum about moving to Maine.
And we wonder why the youngest generation is fleeing.
And we wonder why the youngest generation is fleeing.
Young adults leave because they want high paying jobs. They want to experience cities with exciting nightclubs, lights and glitter. If they grew up in Maine they know all about rural and quiet. They want to be vibrant and exciting. I get it. Our children left Maine.
The same number of people who leave each year, migrate to Maine for the things that Maine does have to offer.
"The same number of people who leave each year, migrate to Maine for the things that Maine does have to offer."
Agreed, but they leave at age 30 and the same people come back at age 55. That explains the deep slump in the age population graphs that have been seen for decades. That slump is not a lack of births to Maine born parents. It's just that those births took place in other states. I don't know another state where this takes place.
It isn't incredible. It is simple demographic history. The reasons for it are not incredible either. Those who caused it wrote it all down for us. Of course, it is not popular, but it is accurate.
Young adults leave because they want high paying jobs. They want to experience cities with exciting nightclubs, lights and glitter. If they grew up in Maine they know all about rural and quiet. They want to be vibrant and exciting. I get it. Our children left Maine.
The same number of people who leave each year, migrate to Maine for the things that Maine does have to offer.
That was sarcasm. I've lived in Washington, Aroostook, and Penobscot and one of those young people who is considering leaving for that exact reason.
I'm young and if I could make a living in northwestern Maine I'd be living there. Not all s young people want cities but you can't eat the scenery either. My Essex County, VT property is a hop and a skip from there as it is, from the point of view of a crow anyways, not necessarily on the ground.
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