BEND, Ore. (AP) -- A 32-year-old land management plan in Deschutes County is getting a major overhaul. But first, the competing interests of conservationists and builders have to be worked out.

So far, all they have in common is an intense dislike for the proposed land management plan, the Bend Bulletin reports.

Representatives of building interests said they detect a bias against developers and an unfair support of agriculture.

The plan has "a general and pervasive, very negative bias toward development," said Bill Robie, the government affairs director for Central Oregon Association of Realtors.

Eighty percent of land in Deschutes County is owned by a government entity, split among federal, state and county agencies. Occasionally, the federal government will sell of parcels of land to private ownership.

"The county ties itself in knots trying to prop up agriculture," which is not a profitable industry in Deschutes County, Robie said, while at the same time the county restricts the more profitable development sector.

The new plan would replace one instituted in 1979 that has undergone some revisions, but now faces its first major overhaul.

The current proposal calls for a review of the plan every five years, and covers development through 2030.

Developers have argued for a "no net loss" policy that would allot one acre to development interests for every acre that is preserved for conservation.

Conservationists argue that the plan doesn't go far enough to protect wildlife and farmland. For example, an earlier pledge to adopt a 2009 set of federal agency recommendations to protect wildlife is now gone from the plan. The plan now says the county should "incorporate appropriate wildlife habitat recommendations."

"They have eliminated any goals that would require any new regulations," said Brenda Pace of the conservation group Central Oregon LandWatch.

Pace said Central Oregon LandWatch is concerned about language in the plan that calls for addressing land-use "challenges" in an area east of Bend where property owners have been frustrated by rules that forbid them from subdividing farmland for residential development.

"There's been a long-standing policy by the county to protect that area for a wide range of species that need large ranges," said LandWatch attorney Paul Dewey said.

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Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com

Copyright 2011 The AP.