Thanks for your comments about Asylum Lake and the Colony Farm Orchard. The bill that would remove the open space/public use restrictions on the Orchard property (HB 5207) has now made its way to the governor’s desk. She will either sign it or veto it in the next few days. A phone call, letter, or email (or all of them) to the governor could help convince her that a veto is the answer. My newest post here (done 24 Dec) addresses the question of how credible WMU’s claims about needing the land to bring jobs to Kalamazoo are. A bigger piece of unrestricted land, such as several that WMU already owns or a good-sized remediated brownfield would be better. The 24 Dec post also contain contact information for the governor.

Thanks for your thoughts.

There were 14,000+ visits to this website in the month of July, but I think you’re right that few were people promoting use of the Colony Farm Orchard for expansion of the WMU Business Park.

However, please feel free to use or encourage the use of the website for such pro and con (or simply educational) discussion. Additional comments would be welcome at this post of Mark Hoffman’s essay, and I expect that I’ll have a new post or two on the topic in the next few days, where the discussion could also occur.

It’s an important issue but not a new one. In many ways, the whole thing is a remarkably close re-run of the attempt by WMU in the 1990s to locate the Business Park on the Asylum Lake property–and later on to locate an extension of the Business Park there, and later still to turn it into a golf course. Additional information on the subject, current and historic, is in some earlier posts (and links within them), for 15 July and 23 July (at the end).

Verities are eternal, but politics change. The attacks of the 1990s were beaten back, with a fairly satisfactory outcome from a conservation standpoint. But there is no assurance that conservation will win out over commerce in 2009.

I wish we had a forum where more folks who had the say-so on this could have a conversation with others who have concerns about it. As it is, I doubt many of them are reading this blog, excellent as it is. :>

At that time, numerous sites were tossed around (some still viable), including various brownfields, the Fort Custer Industrial Park, Schippers Crossing, even the property known then as WMU’s “Arboretum” which was also being examined for a large-scale P.U.D., and others. The Asylum Lake Preservation Association held its position that it would prefer the development (based on the H.S.G.A. and William Johnson consultants’ scenarios) to occur on the unrestricted farmland south of Parkview Avenue. This is, in fact, what we ended up with several years later.

Now, to answer your first question, WMU is stating that the present location of the BTR Park is filling — a sign of its success. Officials are looking for room to expand for new businesses interested in locating there. First, according to Western, the remaining parcels will eventually be sold off and developed. Then the soccer field along Parkview Avenue. But after that — where? They look to the Colony Farm Orchard as the most likely location, being adjacent to the present BTR Park. This may answer part of your second question, too. The University has enabled development within the boundaries of the BTR Park (south of Parkview Avenue), and it is reaching capacity.

Third, certainly there are alternatives to building on the Orchard, and probably on land NOT set aside for “public park, recreation, or open space purposes,” as would be the case with the adjacent Asylum Lake Preserve. During a recent Oshtemo Township Trustee meeting, there was mention of a large tract nearby the BTR Park, located at 11th Street and Parkview Avenue. Apparently planners once discussed future land uses for this tract that would be comparable to the BTR Park. Certainly there are other sites readily available for sale and begging for development, as was noted from 1990-93. (In fact, just a few short weeks ago, the Kalamazoo Gazette featured a great and lengthy story on the Davis Creek Business Park — land in the City of Kalamazoo reclaimed and ready for building.) Alternatives should always be discussed when addressing complex issues such as this one, and your question is the perfect way to begin to the process.

The answer to your final question is “no.”

I guess I need some more background to judge:
1) Why is WMU expanding the BTR park? Is the available space used up?
2) Could BTR facilities be expanded within the existing footprint of the campus, or is more land required?
3) If more land is required, is there any good alternative to expanding into the orchard?

Do you know anywhere where these issues are discussed (online) from WMU’s perspective?