Mark Hoffman, mentioned in an earlier post as the person who knows the most about the history of the Asylum Lake (Kalamazoo, Michigan) property, gave permission to post this white paper on the current situation.  He prepared it for the Asylum Lake Protection Association, one of the leaders in the conservation battle that occupied much of the 1990s.  Mark was one of the first to call my attention to the undesirability of those early plans of WMU to invade the protected property.  When he first mentioned the conservation and open space value of the protected property some twenty years ago, he spoke to me, not about the larger parcel directly around the lake, but instead the parcel west of Drake Road, with grape tangles and native trees and herbs advancing through the old orchard, forming food-rich, secure cover for birds and mammals.–RB

WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY PROPOSES DEVELOPMENT
FOR RESTRICTED PROPERTY – AGAIN

Mark Hoffman

Colony Farm Orchard, a narrow 54-acre tract of wooded open space, is one of three large and contiguous pieces of property along the southwest city limits of Kalamazoo that once sited an extensive farming operation for the Kalamazoo State Hospital from 1888 to 1959 and included a residential “cottage system” for patients that was phased out in 1969.  As the three properties were deemed surplus by the Michigan Department of Mental Health, they were transferred individually to Western Michigan University (WMU).  The Colony Farm Orchard was the last of the three transfers to WMU, with its enabling legislation enacted by the state of Michigan in 1977.  It is now threatened to be developed by Western.  1977 Public Act 158 (section 3) conveys the Orchard to WMU but limits the University to using the property “solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize western Michigan university to utilize the property for some other public purpose.”  The legislation also permits MSU’s Department of Entomology to continue its use of the Orchard for fruit pest research until they no longer need the land.  MSU began their research in the Orchard on apples, grapes, and cherries during 1963 – after U.S. 131 split the property and limited its productivity for the State Hospital.

Bordering the Colony Farm Orchard is a 274-acre tract known as the Asylum Lake Preserve.  This property was conveyed to WMU by the state of Michigan in 1975 with the identical restrictive language used to transfer the Orchard property, as stated above.  The Asylum Lake property, with its two connecting lakes, hiking trails, and prairie restoration, was further restricted by WMU Trustees in April 2004 with their adoption of a management framework and additional guidelines that designated it as a “preserve.”  The new status for the land resulted as a compromise with the Kalamazoo community in 1999 to generate support for the controversial development of a Business, Technology, and Research (BTR) Park on 257 acres of adjacent University property (former State Hospital farmland, south of Parkview Avenue, transferred to WMU in 1959 without restrictions). Furthermore a $1.5-million endowment was also established in 1999 to fund the maintenance of the Asylum Lake Preserve for passive recreational opportunities.

Beginning the process to strip the Orchard of its restrictions, WMU’s Board of Trustees, on July 2, 2009, approved an agreement that was negotiated with MSU for the termination of its long-standing lease that has allowed them to conduct fruit pest research on the property.  WMU Trustees also authorized expenditures, not to exceed $985,000, to help relocate MSU’s experimental operation that is presently on the Orchard.  Western next seeks to have the Michigan Legislature eliminate the  “public park, recreation, open space…” transfer-stipulations to enable the expansion of its University-sponsored BTR Park, located on adjacent land (see House Bill 5207, introduced July 16, 2009 by Rep. Robert Jones, Kalamazoo Democrat).  Officials from Western have also announced that after the Orchard is free of its restrictions, the University intends to sell parcels of the property to private businesses to recover the $985,000 spent to relocate MSU’s research.

As the development of the Colony Farm Orchard looms once again, Kalamazoo’s Asylum Lake Preservation Association (ALPA) is seeking to retain the restrictions that were enacted when the 1977 legislative conveyance took place.  While the Orchard itself remains wild and wooded, ALPA believes that developing this tract will also pose a serious risk to the sensitive ecosystem of the neighboring Asylum Lake Preserve and the extensive watershed that is encompassed throughout both properties.  Furthermore, the long and narrow Colony Farm Orchard serves to buffer the Asylum Lake Preserve from further commercial encroachment, while protecting the habitats from the high traffic volume on U.S. 131, which creates the western boundary of the Orchard.

ALPA’s continuing interest in this land was recently expressed through its pursuit to designate the Orchard as a selected site in Kalamazoo County – one with distinct characteristics for agriculture, recreation, history, unique habitats, and buffers.  Subsequently, the property was one of many distinctive natural areas included by a coordinated smart-growth initiative (Convening Our Community and Convening for Action) in their January 2003 publication, Smarter Growth for Kalamazoo County.  Kalamazoo College officials involved in this initiative compiled the booklet to report special places where “preserving them could be a starting point to smarter growth” (p. 26).  They further noted that, “[t]oo many of these sites lay in the path of development … [and] too few resources and incentives exist to encourage developers to incorporate smart growth principles that would not only preserve these sites, but showcase them” (p. 27).

The new threat over losing the Colony Farm Orchard to development is shaping up to be the repeat of a prior attempt to change the status of the restricted land.  Following a long and bitter fight from 1990-93, Western Michigan University withdrew its attempt to change the conveyance restrictions on the Orchard in May 1993 after it failed to convince a Senate committee that private / for-profit businesses constituted a “public purpose,” as stipulated in the 1977 conveyance legislation (1977 Public Act 158).  This decision followed three years of tumultuous community debate that started when WMU announced in April 1990 that it would begin developing the Colony Farm Orchard with its Business – Research Park.

Throughout the deliberations, the Asylum Lake Preservation Association and the Kalamazoo Environmental Council (KEC) united with neighborhoods and community leaders in Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township to protect the three properties from the business and industrial development that WMU was proposing.  The KEC, at that time, believed that it was important for Western to “hold and maintain parcels of land containing natural ecosystems for purposes of research and instruction.”  And while the need to build upon this parcel of land was not demonstrated, especially in light of alternative sites that were available, the organization further believed that the sensitive ecosystem in this area could be destroyed by the development that was being proposed.  ALPA concurred at that time, and it has not altered its position.

ALPA is now seeking assistance and asking others to voice their objections to House Bill 5207 by letting state legislators know that WMU’s Colony Farm Orchard in Oshtemo Township needs to be retained for “public park, recreation, or open space purposes,” as the 1977 conveyance legislation mandates.