To the editor:

For the past three months, the Judiciary Committee in the Legislature has been wrestling with a controversial bill that would threaten Maine’s ability to create new land use laws or strengthen existing laws.

As originally written, LD 1810 would have allowed property owners to sue the state if they felt a new state law created a legal “taking” by reducing the value of their property by 50 percent. At a public hearing opponents outweighed proponents by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

The bill’s opponents understand that fair reasonable land use laws are essential to protecting clean water, critical fish and wildlife habitat, and safe, healthy neighborhoods where people can live and work.

The Judiciary Committee responded to the public testimony. By an 8-5 vote, the committee passed an amendment that is a workable approach for addressing issues raised by the Takings Study Committee and the public.

Republicans, Democrats and an independent on the Judiciary Committee supported a bipartisan amendment put forth by Rep. Brad Moulton, RYork, and Rep. Charles Priest, D-Brunswick. This has become the majority report to the bill.

The majority report to LD 1810 creates a Regulatory Fairness Committee made up of legislators who would evaluate the impacts of regulation on property owners. The new committee would hear input from groups representing property owners and would refer legitimate issues to the committees of jurisdiction to address them with legislative action.

In contrast, the minority report is closer to the original bill, and if passed by the Legislature would likely result in a flood of lawsuits leading to budgetary, legal and policy problems for Maine.

Therefore, I strongly urge my state legislators, Rep. Kim Olsen and Sen. Stan Gerzofsky to support the majority report to LD 1810 when they vote on it in the coming days.

Robert R. Bryan,
Harpswell

[email protected]