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April 30, 2007
FIRST PERSON: Into the woods | A LURC official chats about development pressures in Maine's Unorganized Territories
By Scott Rollins
Director of permitting and compliance at the Land Use Regulation Commission in Augusta
We are not an agency that tries to shun away development, but we want to regulate it and get it in the right spots. The building permits have really increased in the past five years and we haven't seen it slow down yet. What we're also seeing is complexity ˆ the small camp being turned into a larger structure. Certainly not what you would think of as the little camp on the lake.
We have different regional offices. We have a regional office in Rangeley, we have one in Greenville, we have one in East Millinocket, one up in Ashland and one Down East in Cherryfield. Half the state is covered by LURC jurisdiction. And I don't want to forget, too, the coastal islands. We also deal with Monhegan, Matinicus, and some of the other smaller coastal islands. So it's not just a North Woods component.
We're seeing increased growth in both residential and commercial development. We've got a year-round population right now around 12,000, for all the Unorganized Territories. The dwelling units we're seeing have increased since 1971, when LURC started, by a little over 81%. In 1971 there were over 11,000 dwelling units and in 2005, there were over 20,000. Essentially it's about 250 new dwelling units a year, over that 30-some years. But in the last five years, it's gone up to about over 330 new dwelling units a year, so the amount of new dwelling units is rising at a faster rate than it had been.
Our development permits have gone up, too. The first 20 years of LURC, we were getting about 30 development permits per year, and those range from gravel pits to water extractions to golf courses to restaurants. From the 90s up through now, that's increased almost double, to about 50 or 60 a year. Fairly recently, we had a public hearing regarding the Hammond Ridge proposal up in the Millinocket area and that's calling for both a residential subdivision component and also a resort and hotel.
I can certainly speculate on why people are more interested [in the Unorganized Territories.] Development is moving up, and people in the southern part of the state maybe want to get away from their neighbors and get in the woods and have a place on the lake. Down in the southern part of the state, most of those lakes are full and they may not be able to find an area where they can have their second home.
We're seeing actually the biggest growth in the Rangeley region. That's actually one of our smaller geographical regions as far as the number of townships in it. Part of the appeal of Rangeley is the lakes and the mountains. Another part of it is that it's closer to some of the larger population areas. You can get to the Rangeley region quicker than you can get to some of the other areas. Aroostook and Down East aren't seeing as much growth happening at this point.
The real concern I see is that we don't have enough time that we can devote to going out in the field and ensuring compliance with people when they're building those structures.
In our division there are 12 [employees], and 10 of them are actually out in the field. And we have a huge area to try to cover, so we could utilize a lot more staff, especially in the field or on the ground.
Covering ground
The biggest concern is we get out there and we find a huge structure that was built without a permit. So we actually have after-the-fact permits, where we charge a triple fee. But in many cases, it would never have been granted approval, so then we have to deal with an enforcement issue, which would include a fine. So it's not that we think there are things going on ˆ we know there are, and unfortunately we can't get to them all.
We work with applicants to say, "Here's something you need to do to tweak your application to make it approvable." So we really work hard with the applicants to make sure they meet our rules, and sometimes they don't listen. Some I would say know [the rules] and take that chance. I've also heard that folks are saying, "Just tell LURC that you're gonna build what they want to hear, but build whatever you want because they'll never be able to come see it because they don't have the staff to get out there." That is the word on the street, so to speak.
There are many different reasons for a violation. A lot of times it's how people do the work. It may be that they don't use erosion control, or they're clearing so that they can see the lake, but the clearing is in violation of our standards. We'd make them maybe remove that fill, make them re-vegetate.
We've got one violation that we're [dealing with] right now. One of our standing conditions is that you cannot work while the ground is frozen or saturated. And this contractor went out and started doing the site work for this structure which included digging right into a slope probably five times more than what the permit allowed, and doing it at this time of the year, during the freeze and thaw cycles. We happened to stumble upon it. It was one that we saw in one of our reviews going along, checking out some areas. And this was the worst site the state soil scientist had seen in his career, [in terms of] how poorly this job was done. So we're trying to get this corrected.
The key is that if this site here was one that we couldn't have gotten out to, this would have gone on and we wouldn't have stopped them partway through and prevented the sedimentation into the lake. They would have created a major sedimentation problem. We were fortunate to have gotten this, but we don't know what else is out there.
There's also an Unorganized Territory study committee, looking at services in the Unorganized Territories. Certainly what is happening is that, with the larger structures that are capable year round, some people would be retiring to them and then almost expecting the services, as opposed to when you had the little hunting camp, you didn't expect the services. You brought everything.
And one of the recommendations of that Unorganized Territory study committee was to actually inform people that when they purchase land in the Unorganized Territory, their level of service may be different than what they'd get in Portland or Bangor or towns that have their own fire stations. The response time may be very great for a 911 call, and schooling might be farther away.
The committee's report is actually titled, "The commission to study the cost of providing certain services in the Unorganized Territories," and it came out December 2006. The membership included some [state] representatives, some senators, some large landowners, representatives from the Department of Conservation and also some folks in the Forest Service. A lot of it had to do with providing services in the Unorganized Territory, including fire protection, LURC services and education. There's actually a bill [this session], LD 885, that [would] implement some of the recommendations.
People that are buying in this area in many cases wouldn't know that there are fewer services. Part of that, too, falls a little bit on the Realtors. One of the things I'm in the process of doing is applying for us to do an educational component for all the Realtors ˆ a training on LURC, on buying selling real estate in the Unorganized Territories. We would be certified to give that training and give a continuing education credit.
We are in the process now of passing a proposal for increasing our permit fees, too. Our hope is that the increased revenue would help to get us some new positions. For a building permit, the larger structure you have the more you would pay. Right now contractors have paid $75 per building permit, whether it's putting a deck on their mobile home or [a large development]. We feel there's a big difference in that review time [for the LURC staff].
From what I've seen in my time here, there's a lot going on that we just aren't seeing. [We need] to have that additional staff to go out and not only educate, but actually be there on site while [contractors] are getting ready to start, to get them to do something before they have a huge investment. Because once that house goes up, it's very hard to come in and say, "You've gotta move this back."
We are not an agency that tries to shun away development, but we want to regulate it and get it in the right spots. The building permits have really increased in the past five years and we haven't seen it slow down yet. What we're also seeing is complexity ˆ the small camp being turned into a larger structure. Certainly not what you would think of as the little camp on the lake.
We have different regional offices. We have a regional office in Rangeley, we have one in Greenville, we have one in East Millinocket, one up in Ashland and one Down East in Cherryfield. Half the state is covered by LURC jurisdiction. And I don't want to forget, too, the coastal islands. We also deal with Monhegan, Matinicus, and some of the other smaller coastal islands. So it's not just a North Woods component.
We're seeing increased growth in both residential and commercial development. We've got a year-round population right now around 12,000, for all the Unorganized Territories. The dwelling units we're seeing have increased since 1971, when LURC started, by a little over 81%. In 1971 there were over 11,000 dwelling units and in 2005, there were over 20,000. Essentially it's about 250 new dwelling units a year, over that 30-some years. But in the last five years, it's gone up to about over 330 new dwelling units a year, so the amount of new dwelling units is rising at a faster rate than it had been.
Our development permits have gone up, too. The first 20 years of LURC, we were getting about 30 development permits per year, and those range from gravel pits to water extractions to golf courses to restaurants. From the 90s up through now, that's increased almost double, to about 50 or 60 a year. Fairly recently, we had a public hearing regarding the Hammond Ridge proposal up in the Millinocket area and that's calling for both a residential subdivision component and also a resort and hotel.
I can certainly speculate on why people are more interested [in the Unorganized Territories.] Development is moving up, and people in the southern part of the state maybe want to get away from their neighbors and get in the woods and have a place on the lake. Down in the southern part of the state, most of those lakes are full and they may not be able to find an area where they can have their second home.
We're seeing actually the biggest growth in the Rangeley region. That's actually one of our smaller geographical regions as far as the number of townships in it. Part of the appeal of Rangeley is the lakes and the mountains. Another part of it is that it's closer to some of the larger population areas. You can get to the Rangeley region quicker than you can get to some of the other areas. Aroostook and Down East aren't seeing as much growth happening at this point.
The real concern I see is that we don't have enough time that we can devote to going out in the field and ensuring compliance with people when they're building those structures.
In our division there are 12 [employees], and 10 of them are actually out in the field. And we have a huge area to try to cover, so we could utilize a lot more staff, especially in the field or on the ground.
Covering ground
The biggest concern is we get out there and we find a huge structure that was built without a permit. So we actually have after-the-fact permits, where we charge a triple fee. But in many cases, it would never have been granted approval, so then we have to deal with an enforcement issue, which would include a fine. So it's not that we think there are things going on ˆ we know there are, and unfortunately we can't get to them all.
We work with applicants to say, "Here's something you need to do to tweak your application to make it approvable." So we really work hard with the applicants to make sure they meet our rules, and sometimes they don't listen. Some I would say know [the rules] and take that chance. I've also heard that folks are saying, "Just tell LURC that you're gonna build what they want to hear, but build whatever you want because they'll never be able to come see it because they don't have the staff to get out there." That is the word on the street, so to speak.
There are many different reasons for a violation. A lot of times it's how people do the work. It may be that they don't use erosion control, or they're clearing so that they can see the lake, but the clearing is in violation of our standards. We'd make them maybe remove that fill, make them re-vegetate.
We've got one violation that we're [dealing with] right now. One of our standing conditions is that you cannot work while the ground is frozen or saturated. And this contractor went out and started doing the site work for this structure which included digging right into a slope probably five times more than what the permit allowed, and doing it at this time of the year, during the freeze and thaw cycles. We happened to stumble upon it. It was one that we saw in one of our reviews going along, checking out some areas. And this was the worst site the state soil scientist had seen in his career, [in terms of] how poorly this job was done. So we're trying to get this corrected.
The key is that if this site here was one that we couldn't have gotten out to, this would have gone on and we wouldn't have stopped them partway through and prevented the sedimentation into the lake. They would have created a major sedimentation problem. We were fortunate to have gotten this, but we don't know what else is out there.
There's also an Unorganized Territory study committee, looking at services in the Unorganized Territories. Certainly what is happening is that, with the larger structures that are capable year round, some people would be retiring to them and then almost expecting the services, as opposed to when you had the little hunting camp, you didn't expect the services. You brought everything.
And one of the recommendations of that Unorganized Territory study committee was to actually inform people that when they purchase land in the Unorganized Territory, their level of service may be different than what they'd get in Portland or Bangor or towns that have their own fire stations. The response time may be very great for a 911 call, and schooling might be farther away.
The committee's report is actually titled, "The commission to study the cost of providing certain services in the Unorganized Territories," and it came out December 2006. The membership included some [state] representatives, some senators, some large landowners, representatives from the Department of Conservation and also some folks in the Forest Service. A lot of it had to do with providing services in the Unorganized Territory, including fire protection, LURC services and education. There's actually a bill [this session], LD 885, that [would] implement some of the recommendations.
People that are buying in this area in many cases wouldn't know that there are fewer services. Part of that, too, falls a little bit on the Realtors. One of the things I'm in the process of doing is applying for us to do an educational component for all the Realtors ˆ a training on LURC, on buying selling real estate in the Unorganized Territories. We would be certified to give that training and give a continuing education credit.
We are in the process now of passing a proposal for increasing our permit fees, too. Our hope is that the increased revenue would help to get us some new positions. For a building permit, the larger structure you have the more you would pay. Right now contractors have paid $75 per building permit, whether it's putting a deck on their mobile home or [a large development]. We feel there's a big difference in that review time [for the LURC staff].
From what I've seen in my time here, there's a lot going on that we just aren't seeing. [We need] to have that additional staff to go out and not only educate, but actually be there on site while [contractors] are getting ready to start, to get them to do something before they have a huge investment. Because once that house goes up, it's very hard to come in and say, "You've gotta move this back."
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