Cobscook park a new model in conservation

A new park system located in Lubec and Whiting, Cobscook Shores, is a model of niche conservation, using its Maine nonprofit 501c3 charitable status to provide public access to valuable shorelines, educational programs for area schoolchildren and more. The model is different from land trusts such as Maine Coast Heritage Trust because it has not placed its land holdings in permanent conservation easements that protect land from different types of development into perpetuity.
The Butler Conservation Fund (BCF), a privately held charitable family organization based in New York, owns Cobscook Shores and has invested about $12 million in the system of 14 park parcels that highlight 13.5 miles of scenic shorefront such as the Lubec Narrows and encompass 477 acres. The fund began purchasing parcels in Lubec a few years ago, causing interest and some trepidation about how the land would be used. Now that Cobscook Shores is almost complete and unofficially open, area residents and visitors alike have been visiting to see what it's all about.
Initially BCF set up the Butler Outdoor Education Fund and the Maine Outdoor Education Fund to operate programs in Maine, including in Lubec. BCF Chief Operating Officer Carl Carlson explains that the fund has been in the process of reorganizing and dissolving some funds and incorporating them into local programs. For instance, Cobscook Shores has its own outdoor education program now and has provided 350 local schoolchildren with outdoor recreation and education opportunities that teach biking, paddling and skiing.
For the last four years or so, BCF has been occupied with creating park projects from Chile to Maine. A plan for the long view, a 30 year vision of what its parks and programs will look like down the road, is not on the books yet. Carlson says that the goal of Cobscook Shores is to protect the shoreline for public access, to advocate for the ecological health of the bay and to provide educational and health and wellness programs to local schoolchildren and outdoor recreation opportunities to the general public. Once the park is out of the construction phase, "We'll have more time to think about it." It's one of eight projects around the world, he points out, which is keeping BCF quite busy.

Land conservation through different means
BCF has a 30-year history in Maine supporting other land trusts, but with the formation of Cobscook Shores and another park system in Maine, it has defined itself as a different kind of conservation organization. The focus is the infrastructure, Carlson says, that will support visitors, encourage outdoor activity and address the issues of obesity and other health issues.
Richard Knox, communications director with Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT), which has been a beneficiary of BCF funding, reflects on the different ways that land is preserved in Maine, with a history of philanthropic activity that has resulted in such masterpieces as Acadia National Park and Baxter State Park. It starts with a visionary landowner, he says, who is looking for the best way forward for the land as a public resource. Many landowners choose conservation easements that provide property tax relief for giving up different types of development rights and/or providing different types of public access.
"Land trusts are truly open to the public," Knox says, whereas privately held land without conservation easements lacks that added layer of public benefit protection. He relays a point from MCHT's legal division that land trusts and foundations "both would be benefited by conservation restrictions held by another entity [because it] keeps land from being repurposed for creditors benefit." All that said, he states, "There is incredible public benefit [to Cobscook Shores], but the guarantee into the future is the question."
BCF does have easements on some properties but not all, and because BCF is a conservation organization, it does not see the need for easements, Carlson states. In addition, he explains that easements can make it more challenging to build infrastructure that helps to bring people to the parks, such as more trails, screened-in gazebos and vault toilets. In addition, BCF has extensive financial assets and is setting aside a $5 million endowment for Cobscook Shores that will generate roughly $200,000 in annual revenue to support maintenance and operations.
While no well established organization, including those with substantial financial holdings, anticipates that it will disappear in the future, Carlson says while he sees no reason why Cobscook Shores would ever need to disband or that it might fail, in the unlikely event that it did, the property holdings would go to BCF.

Town revenue through taxation versus gifts
The 477 acres held by Cobscook Shores are completely tax-exempt, meaning no real estate taxes are paid to the Town of Lubec. As the Lubec town assessor, it is Jim Clark's job to be concerned about property tax revenue. He feels that there's a big difference between a known revenue stream of real estate taxes used by a town at its discretion to pay its bills versus monetary or in kind gifts to the town that are for specific uses not up to the town to define. He reports that the total assessed value of the Cobscook Shores land is $2.191 million and that if the land were taxed it would generate $50,600 per year for the town.
Many of the land trusts in Maine are not 501c3 nonprofit organizations, Clark explains, and do pay some tax, although often it's minimal because of the different conservation easements they hold. The burden to Lubec taxpayers of making up for lost property tax revenue from the 3,175 acres in Lubec either totally exempt or in open space programs comes to over $100 for the average taxpayer, he says.
Land trusts and 501c3 nonprofits will sometimes arrange for a payment in lieu of taxes to make up for some of the lost revenue. Cobscook Shores has been providing funding "as projects have come up with the town," says Carlson. Over the past four years it has given $40,000 for different projects, including the Safe Harbors engineering report, repairs to the basketball court and airport upgrades. "We do have five year commitments to provide funding to both the fire department and road repairs."
Cobscook Shores is now working with the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) on a bike lane project that will run along Route 189. Carlson reports, "We are putting up $609,000 in 2020 to build the bike lane, and then DOT will be reimbursing us for about 60% of the cost next year. So we will end up leaving about $300,000 in the ground for that phase with construction and engineering costs. We are covering all engineering costs for the project. We are also working on a phase 2 for the bike lane, which will be about twice as long. For that phase, we hope to build and pay for it in 2021 and get reimbursed for a portion of it from DOT in 2022. We don't have any estimates for that work just yet."
In addition, the $11 million spent to date on the Cobscook Shores park system has included the hiring of 150 different individuals who worked on the project, with about 50 of them from Washington County with "recurring significant work over the last four years," says Carlson. The park will be using about 15 people for regular, ongoing work for annual operations and maintenance. "Being a dispersed park system, it takes quite a number of people to keep it going."

Developing the park's mission
�We're extremely closely aligned with other land trusts in the areas," says Carlson. Each has its own niche, "but together we're all trying to protect public access." BCF founder Gilbert Butler was attracted to the region because it had not been over developed like mid coast Maine, where finding a spot on the shoreline without a house is hard to do, Carlson explains.
A statistic that stuck with Butler was the number of visitors that go to Acadia National Park. In 2019 there were 3.14 million visitors to the iconic park. Butler's stated goal for Cobscook Shores is to eventually attract about 60,000 people annually, or about 2% of Acadia's visitors. Diverting even 1% would be a good thing for both parks, says Carlson, but he does think it will take a number of years to build to those kind of numbers.
The biggest challenge will not be how the park absorbs that many annual visitors but how the town and area are able to support it with restaurants, lodging and other facilities. It's an opportunity for future entrepreneurship, he notes.
The park also can provide a valuable incentive to retirees and new primary and second-home owners. "It's giving a reason for people to come here," Carlson says. And those are the people who will increase the tax base, he points out.
Along with its educational programming for school children, Cobscook Shores is researching how to involve biologists and other scientists. Downeast land can have thin soil on top of ledge or clay formations that can erode. In addition, wildlife habitats and ecosystems can be disrupted by the enthusiastic and tromping public. Having scientists involved in assessing the health of the park on at least an annual basis, but probably much more frequently, is very much on the nonprofit's list of things to do. "We're talking about who to talk to here," Carlson says.
"Mr. Butler is a great believer in the power of environmental education, which he sees as investment in the future of conservation," Carlson observes.
While the Cobscook Shores website is still under construction, more information will be available in the future at www.cobscookshores.org.