Before Your Scribe decides whether or not the Plum Creek recreational-home construction at Moosehead Lake should be approved, I have a question:

How much time would buyers of the new residences spend there?

It's not a query that would bother a real-estate agent trying to sell the potentially pricey homes.

And it's unlikely that the anti-development crowd would be concerned about an unheard of standard such as an "occupancy rate" of seasonal dwellings.

But my concern about Plum Creek is that wealthy folk would buy the residences but would not inhabit them.

It reminds me of the time I was with my onetime Kennebunk neighbor in South Carolina.

Mary Ellen, now resettled, was a seller of high-end waterfront property in that state.

She drove me past several houses she had recently sold, and exclaimed, "These buyers are so wealthy, and so busy, they only come here about three weekends a year."

It was such an incongruous comment that it has stuck with me for more than a decade.

Why buy something if you are not going to use it?

Yet I think of that observation now, as the Land Use Regulation Commission ponders whether to grant permits for the mammoth undertaking at Moosehead.

Will the people buying these residences, which will likely run between $500,000 and $1 million, actually use them?

Clearly, the "new" wealthy who want a place in Maine have been driven from the Coast.

It's too expensive for anything good.

So they will look at Plum Creek, with the notion of buying that "prestigious" second or third home.

My bias, of course, is that Moosehead is a long way from civilization.

It doesn't have a Brunswick or Rockland or even an Ellsworth to light up a dull weekend.

So my concern is that lakeside forests will be leveled for new residences that most Mainers can't afford - but new owners won't visit them on a consistent basis.

I know. It's an unorthodox read of a complex situation.

It's just that it would be REALLY unfortunate if semi-wilderness were invaded by builders - and buyers didn't have the commitment to develop a community there, even on a seasonal basis.

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