Missoula News

montana legacy project

Plum Creek to Retain Zoning Veto Power in Parts of Missoula County

By Matthew Frank, 9-23-08

Plum Creek Timber Co., in identifying which of its lands to divest as part of the Montana Legacy Project, retained majority ownership of the private land -- and the zoning veto power that confers -- in some of Missoula County's most ecologically and economically valuable areas.

The company will still own at least 51.8 percent of the private land in the Seeley Lake Regional Planning area and possibly 50 percent in the Potomac/Greenough area, according to numbers crunched by Missoula County Rural Initiatives.

"I think it is definitely a concern," said Jon Haufler, chairman of the Seeley Lake Community Council. "That protest provision, particularly for county-initiated zoning, does make it very difficult" to plan community development.

But the community of Seeley Lake has been in discussions with Plum Creek for months to come up with a mutually agreeable growth plan, Haufler said, and that process will continue.

Plum Creek says it wasn't a deliberate calculation. "Retaining veto authority in specific planning regions was not a consideration in the process," said Tom Ray, general manager of the Northwest Region.

Nor was it a factor for The Nature Conservancy, one of Plum Creek's partners in the transaction. Jim Berkey said his organization was instead "focused on the land with the highest conservation value." (Plus, they only had so much money to spend.)

The zoning protest provision (MCA 76-2-205(6)) says that if landowners owning 50 percent or more of the private lands taxed for agricultural purposes or as forestland in a planning area decide to protest a zoning proposal, the county commissioners may not adopt the proposal and cannot entertain another proposal for at least one year.

"If one landowner can kill (any attempt at zoning) in an entire region, why try?" asked Pat O'Herren, director of Missoula County Rural Initiatives. That one landowner can trump hundreds of others is pretty unique to Montana, he said.

The Montana Legacy Project was announced in May, dubbed by Sen. Max Baucus as the largest land acquisition for conservation purposes in American history. Over the next three years Plum Creek -- the largest private landowner in the state (and country) that in 1999 reorganized as a real estate investment trust -- will be selling 312,000 acres of land in western Montana to The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land for more than $500 million. Those organizations will be transferring ownership to the Forest Service, DNRC and timber investment management organizations (TIMOs).

	Proportion of private lands owned by Plum Creek Timber Company in each Missoula County planning region, courtesy of Missoula County Rural Initiatives. a Represents lands in the traditional Potomac/Greenough planning region excluding lands considered in the proposed Seeley Lake Regional Planning Area. b Represents lands considered in the proposed Seeley Lake Regional Planning Area.

There remain questions, though, about which entities will eventually manage which chunks of land, and because they could end up in public or private hands, Plum Creek's eventual percentage of ownership in planning regions is a range, not an exact number.

Countywide, the Legacy Project will dramatically alter land ownership patterns. Plum Creek currently owns 57.3 percent of the private land, or more than 400,000 acres. That will drop to between 25.9 and 37.7 percent, with 230,000 being sold. In the Clinton-Turah, Frenchtown-Huson, Lolo and Swan planning regions, Plum Creek's ownership percentage will drop substantially, all to well below 50 percent.

Planning in the Seeley Lake area is one of Missoula County Rural Initiatives' top priorities right now, said O'Herren. "The opportunities and risks are very high in that particular planning region," he said, citing its landscape, resources, wildlife and positioning in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem -- all of which make it a hot spot for transplants (and thus more valuable to Plum Creek), too.

"It does make it hard to do what maybe a majority of people feel is right if they do have that veto power," said County Commissioner Jean Curtiss.

Now whether there's a majority that do favor zoning, in Seeley Lake or other parts of the County, is another question all together.

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