plan to develop a resort community on the Schoodic Peninsula has met with skepticism among conservation groups and guarded enthusiasm among some Winter Harbor officials.
The proposal by the Winter Harbor Holding Company calls for the creation of a resort community on some 3,300 acres in Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro, including an undeveloped island and land bordering Acadia National Park at Schoodic Point. Company spokesman Mike Saxl said the proposal could ultimately contain two hotels, neighborhoods of seasonal and workforce housing, and several nature centers. An earlier draft of the plan contained an airstrip.
Saxl characterizes the development as an “eco-community,” saying the goal is to minimize the development’s ecological footprint while providing centers for environmental education. He said the proposal would include energy-efficient, clustered housing and a plan to protect some 2/3 of the acreage with conservation easements.
“We are committed to long-term conservation of this property,” Saxl said.
Saxl has been meeting with state and local officials to discuss the project, with the stated goal of gathering feedback about the proposal before it is finalized. The landowners want to aim for transparency, he said.
That’s a different strategy than they took with the last project on the land, said Ken Olson, the former CEO of the conservation group Friends of Acadia and an outspoken critic of the proposal. In 1996, Olson said, Friends of Acadia staff only caught wind of a planned clear-cut on a 1600-acre section of the land from an overheard conversation in a coffee shop. The resulting outcry over the proposed cut created national news.
“That 1,600 acres of trees became the most famous stand of trees in Maine,” Olson said.
Friends of Acadia negotiated a four-month moratorium on the cut and helped the landowners create a wood management plan that spared the most ecologically-critical areas. But Olson said he could tell by the cut patterns that the land was being earmarked for future development; the new proposed development would impact those spared environmental areas, he said.
The proposal has put local and state conversation groups on high-alert, including Friends of Acadia, the Frenchman Bay Conservancy, and the Maine Sierra Club. While the groups haven’t condemned the proposal outright, they do have grave concerns.
Marla O’Byrne, current Friends of Acadia CEO and president, doesn’t understand how the resort could be economically feasible, given the Schoodic Peninsula’s quiet and short tourist season. She worries that if the economics don’t bear out as planned, the ecological aspects of the proposal will be the first to go.
O’Byrne also wishes the landowners would provide firmer estimates about size of the hotels and the number of houses proposed; she said the plan could result in the building of some 1000 homes and hotels that could house 1000 more people.
“We don’t have these answers,” she said. “Until we do, there’ll be some serious questions for us.”
National Park officials have been more strident in their objections to the proposal. They argue the proposed development would mar the famous view at Schoodic Point and choke access to the park.
“We’re being faced with almost a worse-case scenario with that property,” said John Kelly, Acadia National Park planner.
Kelly said the 3,300 acre parcel is one of the largest undeveloped coastal sections in the state, one that connects the coast to the mountains. The risks posed by a large development in such an unspoiled watershed would be immense for the entire ecosystem, he said. And the proposed easements won’t do enough to preserve the habitat from fragmentation, he said, because the conserved land would largely be made up of mountainous terrain and crisscrossed by new roads.
“Animals are not going to travel along the tops of mountains,” he said.
But while some Winter Harbor residents have called the proposal unworkable, others hope the development will replace jobs lost when an area Navy base closed. Winter Harbor Fire Chief Bob Webber said the town could use an influx of tax money; he was critical of people who wanted to keep the land in a natural state.
“Unfortunately, ‘the deer and the antelope’ don’t pay taxes,” Webber said.
The development team plans to generate a final plan that will incorporate public feedback; the plan will also be tested for economic viability. The process could take months, Saxl said.
Because of the development’s size, the plan will need approval from Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro planning boards, as well as the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.