LUPC Towns (Bangor, Augusta, Houlton: amusement park, houses, schools)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Many people are curious about Maine's most rural places. LUPC (formerly called LURC) has a handy link that shows those towns and plantations:

LUPC Reports

Just scroll down to the list of towns. It is in PDF format.

Don't wander around aimlessly. Have a plan. Over 300 of our towns have no services, no gas, no shopping and no signs at road intersections. Often there is no cellular service. You will occasionally see signs on hill tops with a plywood cutout shaped like a phone hand set and painted blue. That is an indicator that you "might" have cell service there.

Caution; Some roads will have gates. If you drive in through a gate, the logging company that owns the gate may not know you are in there. You could follow your GPS track back to the gate and find it locked. There will be no phone number you can call for somebody to come and unlock the gate.

"Mud time" is coming. This is our fifth season. It is that time when dirt roads are just plain impassable. Roads that run north and south dry up first simply because they get more sun. Conversely, roads that run east and west dry up last and there are east/west roads on the north side of a hill where you can find snow in the road for a hundred yards or so. Don't take a chance. Just stop, turn around and go back. Calling a wrecker to winch you out of the muck is one of the most costly road service bills you will ever have, despite the wrecker driver's entertainment factor. Call somebody beforehand . There are lots of people who know local conditions.

[massnative71]

Good info., thanks for posting.

[Submariner]

Thank you for that link.

One of my projects has been to make a complete listing of all Unorganized townships of Maine. All 554 of them.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

During the effort to abolish LURC and give the authority back to the counties as it was on Sept. 22, 1971, we visited every county that has UTs and got onto the agendas of the county commissioners. Even Lincoln County down on the coast has UTs. You see, all the islands that do not have town governments are UTs and their land use is governed by Augusta. We gave each county commissioner a copy of the Maine Constitution. Many commissioners did not even know that Maine has its own constitution that they swear to uphold. All states do.

Ignorance of rights and our Constitution are how unconstitutional laws and rules are foisted onto the People by special interest groups. I capitalized the word People here because our forefathers capitalized the word, People in all our founding documents.

"We the People of the United States, - - -"

[Maineac]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

During the effort to abolish LURC and give the authority back to the counties as it was on Sept. 22, 1971, we visited every county that has UTs and got onto the agendas of the county commissioners. Even Lincoln County down on the coast has UTs. You see, all the islands that do not have town governments are UTs and their land use is governed by Augusta. We gave each county commissioner a copy of the Maine Constitution. Many commissioners did not even know that Maine has its own constitution that they swear to uphold. All states do.

Ignorance of rights and our Constitution are how unconstitutional laws and rules are foisted onto the People by special interest groups. I capitalized the word People here because our forefathers capitalized the word, People in all our founding documents.

"We the People of the United States, - - -"

Yes, WE the people, not just you and the Sovereign Citizens. You complain about the evils of zoning. Why not just be open and say you want to be able to have your auto junkyard or tire dump anywhere you want, or send your mine tailings into the nearest watershed, change your oil in the driveway and just dump it on the ground, pollute whatever and wherever you want, clearcut and pave all the way up to the shore of the lake, build the camp out to cover the entire lot, subdivide everything, and take a dump on your neighbor's lawn and send him a bill for fertilizer. And then hide behind the Constitution, blame Universities and schools for educating people (we don't want education, because its easier to convince uneducated people WE are right and THEY are wrong, since educated people might consider all sides of a situation). Thank God there are National Parks, Monuments and other Federal lands, or you would have turned the Grand Canyon into a giant mining free for all and amusement park. The Colorado would be forever polluted. Americans learned from their mistakes. They learned that the water directly under a parcel of land is connected to all other water in the aquifer. Some simply don't seem to comprehend that. Look at Lucerne in Maine. Lots as small as 20' x 50' for the "vacationing" out of state family. A plan for "camps" door to door with 50 gallon drums full of rocks for a septic, leaching straight into Phillips Lake. Go look at Stan Plisga's maps. He has all the originals. Yeah, society learned. You seem to think you have the "Constitutional right" to poison that water. You don't, and it frustrates the hell out of you and the corporate interests that have convinced you to repeat their mantra in monotone. It always amuses me that those that seem to want "to be left alone" the most are the ones that feel they have the God-given right to have the greatest impact on their neighbors. Naturally, this fantasy extends to politics, denial of climate change and global warming, etc. The mantra has become organic, ingrained.

I grew up in T32, Sandy Point and the Bangor area, and run everywhere from Rangeley to Houlton to Fort Kent and back down to Popham Beach. I've been to many of the offshore islands. I worked for Scott Paper in the townships. The counties weren't prepared or equipped to deal with industrial forestry and massive waterfront subdivision. They would have had to hire experts, like foresters, surveyors, land managers, forest rangers, etc. The multinationals would've walked all over them. As it was, they did. Nothing to do with "stealing your right to pollute." However, after 62 years, and I was born in the middle of Maine, I can always tell when someone didn't grow up here. We never had a problem with LURC or LUPC. Those that WANT the right to pollute, throw in a septic system, start a tire dump, a junkyard, triple the size of the camp hanging out over the water, yeah. They got a problem. The rest of us understand why certain rules are in place.

[arctichomesteader]

Bolt cutters aren't a bad thing to have for emergencies (emphasis on emergencies). I wouldn't want to have to walk back to civilization from some of the places those gates exist, if you get caught behind one when someone decides to lock it.

I do recall reading of plenty of problems with LURC. There are legitimate reasons for some zoning rules and such. Straight pipes to dump sewage and building up to the water's edge are good examples of things that should not be done. Building a 500 house subdivision on a remote lake or something should be looked at. But I know LURC went way beyond that sort of thing at times. If someone wants to live in one of the most isolated UT's because they hate civilization, why shouldn't they be allowed to, knowing full well the risks and lack of services they face. But LURC at times treated individuals like that the same as a big developer. Moreover, the people living in those areas should have some voice in the government decisions impacting them, beyond merely attending a public hearing or something.

[Submariner]

Living in a UT with LURC/LUPC our zoning/planning is done by government officials who are not responsive to constituents. Because they are NOT elected to office. There is no 'elected official' to constituent relationship.

Every 5 years they generate a long-term CLUP [Comprehensive Land Use Plan] full of Visions, Goals and Policies.

The current CLUP was discussed a bit on this forum when it was going through it's hearings, ie, 'primitive use' only vs. allowing gasoline vehicles, ...

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Hey Submariner. I got you a map yesterday that I think you'll like. I'll drop it off sometime. It shows every Unorganized Township in the state in color.

Heritage counts. There are boathouses on the west side of the outlet from West Grand Lake just above the dam at Grand Lake Stream. Three of them were destroyed by fire two years ago. You can't get a building permit to replace this important part of our heritage so the legislature passed a law allowing them to be reconstructed. More than 70 years ago I watched men build a boathouse in a lake. The boathouse did not harm the lake in any way. The second floor was two bedrooms for guests. That didn't hurt the lake either. There was a small deck off the bedrooms with a flagpole on the deck. It was a landmark back then and it still is.

I can think of a few more boathouses that need major repairs. I'll look into that. When I look into something, stuff tends to happen.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Hey Submariner. I got you a map yesterday that I think you'll like. I'll drop it off sometime. It shows every Unorganized Township in the state.

Every year I get the UT Fiscal Year Annual Report. It has a lot of charts and data about Maine's UTs as a whole. It also has a chapter for each county, listing every UT, their budgetary spending, how many children each UT has, etc. There is lots of great data included in these things. I know each county's revenue from property taxes, excise taxes, road assistance, and snowmobile grants. I have their budgets for fire, road, bridges, waste removal, etc.

I have been getting these things about 5 years now [somewhere I got my name onto the right list].

I compiled my own list of all 432 organized towns and 554 Unorganized Townships [986 total].

There is a lot of interesting data to be mined from these reports.

Last year I woman contacted me. She had read some of my posts, she was interested in accessing my data on the townships of Maine. She works for a NGO and had exhausted her contacts in the state offices trying to find some data. Since I clearly had the data, she assumed that I worked for some obscure state agency that she had not been able to isolate. She wanted to know which state agency I work at, so she could come by my office, to dig through my files.

On my first couple subs, I used to read the encyclopedias for amusement. On my last boat, they assigned me as Ship's Intelligence Officer for 4 years and gave me custody of our TS library. Every week I had to research some topic from OSI/DNI/CIA HUMINT reports and present a briefing on said topic. That was about the most enjoyable feature of my career.

[TheKezarWoodsman]

Originally Posted by Submariner

Living in a UT with LURC/LUPC our zoning/planning is done by government officials who are not responsive to constituents. Because they are NOT elected to office. There is no 'elected official' to constituent relationship.

Every 5 years they generate a long-term CLUP [Comprehensive Land Use Plan] full of Visions, Goals and Policies.

The current CLUP was discussed a bit on this forum when it was going through it's hearings, ie, 'primitive use' only vs. allowing gasoline vehicles, ...

So they can ban vehicles on the UT? Could they also turn around and bar homesteading type activitys (similar to how you raise hogs)?