From the Record:
Highlands plan is aired, and all sides find fault
Builders are fuming about not being told where they can build.
Property owners want to know if they’ll be able to develop — and how they’ll be compensated if they can’t.
Environmentalists are puzzled that more housing seems slated for mountain lake neighborhoods.
Local planners are wondering what, exactly, the state’s going to allow to be built in their communities.
And everyone’s frustrated about having to comment on the big plan to preserve Highlands reservoir lands without yet getting all of the facts behind that plan.
Welcome to the public hearings on the historic Highlands regional master plan, replete with legal threats and protests on all sides.
The overseeing Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council contends it crafted a solid draft ready for public inspection and suggestions for improvement. But both critics and supporters of the drive to protect the source of more than half the state’s drinking water use words like “confusing” and “incomplete” to describe the plan.
From the Daily Record:
Hearing on Highlands Act tomorrow
The first of an important series of public hearings on the draft master plan drawn by the Highlands Commission and meant to preserve regional water supplies by governing how land in the 800,000-plus-acre area is developed occurs tomorrow.
Many landowners have strongly protested the development strictures in parts of the plan, while environmentalists have endorsed it with some reservations.
In both the preservation and planning areas there will be 300 foot buffers around any body of water. This includes wetlands and vernal ponds. When you look at a map of it it looks like swiss cheese with the holes being developable land, add to it the DEP’s insistence on the “Landscape” project and places to build disappear fast.
The scuttlebut I hear is that much of the plan won’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. It is speculated that the reason for the piece meal release is to avoid the challenges to the data component that seems inevitable. Heck the 300 foot buffer is questionable as a water quality, I mean more is better to a point.
Reasons I have heard for the nonrelease of the data are “you would not understand it anyway”. Pretty lame if you ask me.
I forgot to mention, the “Landscape” project was made through a survet of a couple of lay people volunteer reporting sitings of endangered and threatened species. This would require hip waders in much of these areas. The Landscape map shows areas where the species can be found and their likely habitat.
I am very suspicious of any of the data as it has not been corroborated and is the opinion of a person with an agenda.