By Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Development around Moosehead Lake could attract up to 60,000 day-trippers a year and support 800 jobs, work that could be seasonal or part-time, according to an analysis for Plum Creek released Tuesday.

Professor Charles Colgan’s work for the state’s largest landowner banks on all 975 house lots, three campgrounds, two resorts, four sports camps and one large sawmill coming to fruition in the North Woods.

Plum Creek’s rezoning proposal for 9,000 of its 426,000 acres currently sits with the Land Use Regulation Commission. It’s drawn concern from conservation groups around Maine as being too much.

In an editorial board meeting at the Sun Journal, Jim Lehner said a common public misconception is that his company would actually be building the homes, businesses and cabins mentioned in its application. It won’t.

“Plum Creek is not going to do it. We hope a developer will come along soon,” said Lehner, the general manager of Plum Creek’s northern region.

Those requests, for now, are place-holders.

To support its rezoning application that would make all that development possible, the land company gave Colgan’s report to LURC on Tuesday.

Colgan is a former state economist and a professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School.

Among his findings:

• Housing construction could employ about 300 people by 2010, with $13 million in payroll.

• 40,000 to 60,000 visiting tourists could conservatively spend $3 million a year.

• Employment could peak at 1,484 in 2015 during the construction boom.

Luke Muzzy, senior land asset manager for Plum Creek in Maine, said he expects the vast majority of new homeowners in the area to be seasonal.

He’s hoping some stay.

A Greenville native, Muzzy graduated with a high school class of ’49. The first grade today has eight children.

“The school could take 100 kids right now. The hospital’s the same thing – the hospital needs patients,” Muzzy said. “We need people.”

Lehner said housing units could be built by a developer at a maximum rate of 125 a year, and said he anticipates it would take 20 years to reach the 975-lot cap.

Adding that shore lots around lakes and ponds have been limited to two to three acres, Muzzy added: “Those type of lots don’t lend themselves well to McMansions.”

As part of the rezoning package before LURC, 98 percent of Plum Creek’s holdings in that area would be placed in a no-development deal for at least 30 years. There would be hiking and snowmobile trails and continued public access.

Jonathan Carter’s Forest Ecology Network and RESTORE: The North Woods announced a campaign two weeks ago to defeat Plum Creek’s plan, calling it “wilderness sprawl.”