Newcastle voters approved a state-mandated change in the town resource protection ordinance Monday after a determined group tried to get the town to reject the order.
The voters at a special town meeting approved the ordinance 29 to 25 with both sides reflecting the ideas of two distinct groups – retirees and conservation advocates on one side with timber harvesters and landowners on the other.
“We are between a rock and a hard place,” said Pat Hudson, a member of the select board.
Lee Straw, another select board member who opposed the measure, told the audience they were going to lose, no matter what they did.
“The state keeps telling us what we can do with our own property,” he said.
The town acted after facing a July 1 state-imposed deadline requiring them to adopt a revised shoreland resource protection ordinance.
The measure increased the setbacks from river, streams and wetlands, from 75 feet to 250 feet, and adopted boundaries set out by the state.
Richard Burt, the chair of the planning board, explained the state permitted the town to modify the ordinance in just three areas: Permit the town to adopt more stringent protection requirements (which the town rejected); permit the town’s code enforcement officer to decide requests for timber harvesting; and, to permit the town to modify the current rules for shoreland structures seeking to expand.
Burt told the town voters at the Newcastle Fire Station, that if the town did not adopt the changes to the state imposed ordinance, the state regulations would be imposed anyway, and the town would be required to enforce them. Unless the town acted, all timber-harvesting permits would be controlled by state officials.
“If you wait for the Dept. of Environmental Protection (to approve a timber harvesting permit) it will be a long time,” said Hudson.
Alan Pooley, a planning board member, argued in favor of the changes saying the state was acting to protect the environment.
“The state is us. A large block of people voted to protect resources. Tourists and retirees move here because we protect our natural resources,” he said.
“If we destroy resource protection we will kill the goose that lays the golden egg,” Pooley said.
Robbie Hunt, a member of the family that owns and runs a Jefferson wood products company, offered an impassioned plea to reject the ordinance changes.
“I am so frustrated. The state pushes us around. If we got to sue, so be it. They [the state] passed this law and said ‘take it or leave it.’ I am so upset,” Hunt said.
Ellen McFarland, the chair of the select board, reminded the audience that those opposing the ordinance were not opposed to conservation.
“There are a lot of folks who have owned this land for generations, are close to the land, and have made a choice to protect it,” she said.
Her comment drew the only applause of the meeting.
