Concerns over Colony Farm Orchard aired at town hall meeting

By Fritz Klug
News Editor

The Colony Farm Orchard may be old news for state legislators, who recently passed a bill giving Western Michigan University the right to develop the property.

However, it is nowhere near a dead issue for some in the community.

A special town hall meeting was hosted by the Oakland Drive Winchell Neighborhood Association last Thursday to discuss a recent land conveyance from the state of to WMU.

Bob Miller, associate vice president for community outreach at WMU, originally planned to discuss the university’s $1 purchase of the 2.55 acre Nobel Lodge property on the corner of Oakland Drive and Howard Street.

“It’s better now than it was before,” Miller said, citing that there is currently no heat or clean water in the building.

Miller said the university does not have any plans for property, besides building a brick sign identifying the land as the university’s.

The conversation, however, soon turned to another piece of property conveyed in the bill: the Colony Farm Orchard.

Many in the audience expressed that they want any development on the property to stop and for it to be preserved as green space.

Two signs were posted on the walls that read, “WMU stop taking public land.”

Miller said that the university would develop the orchard properly responsibly and such construction could help the health of the 274-acre Asylum Lake preserve, which is across from the orchard on Drake Road, by building retention ponds to curb the amount of phosphorus that runs into the lake.

Still, for some, the issue they had with the university was not the development, but that they perceived there to have been little transparency throughout the process.

Charles Emerson, a professor of geology at WMU and member of Parkwyn Village Neighborhood Association, expressed disappointment that the removing of the deed restriction was never discussed before being introduced as legislation.

“This is an ex post facto meeting,” he said.

Emerson pointed out that many people have begun withholding donations to the university because of it.

“This brings very negative connotations to the university,” he said. “You’ve embarrassed all of us.”

Elizabeth Aldrich, a Winchell neighborhood resident, wanted there to be more communication between the neighborhood and the university in the future.

“Wouldn’t it be good to have a committee with both Western and the [ODWNA]?” she asked.

“We often don’t have knowledge before the plans are developed.”

Miller said the development of the land is years off and that the process has not yet begun. In July 2009, the Board of Trustees supported to end a lease with Michigan State University.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=15567

Posted by heraldstaff on Mar 14 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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