Ellsworth American
Winter Harbor Planners Review Eco-resort
By Tom Walsh
April 16, 2008
WINTER HARBOR — The Winter Harbor Planning Board met Monday to have its first look at preliminary plans to develop about 40 percent of the property within the town’s boundaries.
During the first public discussion of a proposal to develop an “ecological community” on about 3,200 acres that abut Schoodic Point, Jeffrey Alley Jr., the chairman of the five-member board, expressed his dismay that news of the project came from The Ellsworth American, not from the would-be developer.
“I guess they just didn’t want to bother us with it,” Alley said sarcastically.
A team of proponents of what’s billed as the “Winter Harbor Properties Ecological Community” has been meeting behind closed doors over the past month with public officials and others to outline what property owner Bruno Modena of Milan, Italy, and other investors have in mind.
Among those briefed on the “eco-resort community” concept was John Fuhrman, Winter Harbor’s code enforcement officer. He, in turn, briefed the Planning Board on Monday night, using a site plan of the project that was provided to him by the developers.
The property involved includes over 3,000 acres in Winter Harbor and another 166.6 acres in the Gouldsboro villages of Birch Harbor and Prospect Harbor. The heavily wooded parcel spills across both sides of Route 186 and includes shoreline property around Sargent Island and along Moore Road that extends to the causeway entrance to the Schoodic Section of Acadia National Park.
At approximately 3,200 acres, the property is about one-third larger than the 2,400-acre Schoodic Section, which it abuts.
The elaborate development plan that Fuhrman showed the Planning Board includes 10 areas devoted to housing in the form of homes, cottages and “multi-family mixed use” housing.
It also shows what Fuhrman said would be a 250-room hotel called “Birch Mountain Lodge,” located immediately east of the Frazer Point entrance to Acadia National Park. Fuhrman said a second, 150-room hotel is planned for a site just north of the intersection of Moore Road and Route 186. It would front what the site plan depicts as an 18-hole “Audubon Certified Signature golf course.”
The development concept also shows an avian rehabilitation and education center at the summit of Birch Mountain and a beaver ecology station within the wetlands that surround the golf course. Also shown adjacent to the golf course is the “North Schoodic Nursery,” which is described on the site plan as a “native plant propagation facility” that includes a greenhouse and a “sustainable forestry and jack pine restoration center.”
The plan calls for construction on Sargent Island of an “aquacenter” with open-air tidal pools “to provide visitors with hands-on education regarding intertidal ecology.”
Although much of the parcel is designated as a “green corridor,” it is interlaced with roads, hiking trails and a system of carriage roads modeled after those on Mount Desert Island within Acadia National Park.
“Carriage roads will link the major destinations of the resort, providing universal access to the summit of Birch Mountain and Sargents Island,” the site plan’s key explains. “Access to the carriage roads will be limited to electric cars or trams, bicyclists, horseback riders, walkers or cross-country skiers. The community will provide bicycle access similar to the bike share systems found in Paris and Copenhagen.”
The site plan also suggests that the existing loop road within the Schoodic Section of Acadia National Park be closed to vehicular traffic.
“The community may also establish an agreement with Acadia National Park that would convert the Schoodic Peninsula’s roadway into a carriage road, limiting access to bicycles and electric vehicles.”
The “vision statement” appended to the site plan describes the project as “An ecological community that, by virtue of its development, will bind the region’s ecology, economy and culture, forming a positive union to ensure the preservation and enhancement of habitat, provide employment opportunities to sustain the local economy, and establish a destination for environmental research and education.”
Furhman told the Planning Board the concepts shown on the site map are preliminary.
“They have this map, but nothing is a real plan,” he said. “They’re still investigating and testing soil.”
Fuhrman said he has no idea how the developers plan to provide water and sewer services for eco-community residents and hotel guests. Fuhrman said he has encouraged the developers to get their plans before the planning boards of both Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro.
“I asked ‘Why are you people skirting the planning boards?’” Fuhrman said Monday. “It seems like they’ve met with everybody, but not with the planning boards.
“This will have a significant impact on our infrastructure. There’s no way our Fire Department can handle this, unless [the developer] wants to put up $500,000 for a ladder truck.”
“It’s not just a matter of equipment,” Alley said. “It’s a matter of manpower. If this housing goes in, and there are 100 homes, that will increase residency here by 25 percent.”
Alley said he’s eager to meet with the developers. Fuhrman anticipates “quite a few” requests from the developer for waivers of regulations contained within the town’s subdivision ordinance.
Among those regulations is this one: “The subdivision will protect the unique visual and environmental character of those areas defined by steep slopes, prominent knolls and ridgelines and significant focal points. Such areas will be retained in a natural state and development will be sited in a manner that does not interrupt or modify natural contour lines and does not create a silhouette against the skyline or mountain backdrop as viewed from important vantage points and principle highways, designated scenic roads, public properties or boating activities.”
Another public meeting at which the proposal will be discussed is set for Thursday, April 17, at 7 p.m. in the John G. Moore Auditorium located within the Schoodic Education and Research Center at Schoodic Point.
