The maneuver being pushed by Western Michigan University to convert the Colony Farm Orchard from protected open space to business park was on the agenda for the Oshtemo Township Board last Tuesday night, 24 August 2009.  Representative Robert Jones who introduced the bill to be taken up the following day in the House Commerce Committee (chaired by Representative Jones) was there. So was a WMU representative, Senior Vice President for Advancement and Legislative Affairs Gregory Rosine.

Oshtemo is interested in the matter because it is their open space that is in danger of being lost; the Colony Farm Orchard lies west of Drake Road, thus in Oshtemo Township, which happens not to be in Representative Jones’s district.

As it worked out, the Orchard was the first agenda item right after the pledge of allegiance and approval of the minutes.  Jones spoke in generalities and expressed his solidarity with the trustees in the hard job of local government.  Rosine talked about what a boon WMU’s current business park had been, citing numbers and mentioning compliments received.

Unfortunately, not all of Senior Vice President Rosine’s statements were entirely factual.  He sought to allay the Trustees’ misgivings about the restriction that Jones’s bill would lift, a restriction that reads as follows:

The conveyance shall provide that Western Michigan University may utilize 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.

Senior Vice President Rosine explained to the Trustees and citizens of Oshtemo that in those days (1977) it was routine when the state conveyed land to a university that there be a restriction that the land be kept as open space.  But, he explained, such an idea was no longer valid.  Rather, we are more enlightened now and it is understood that the highest and best use of land is for such things as business parks that will generate jobs and make money.

Senior Vice President Rosine seemed not to know that this restriction was, in fact, not in the original language of the conveyance (House Bill 4058). It was added by Robert Welborn, Representative from Kalamazoo.  At this time his brother John was the State Senator from the Kalamazoo area.  Interested in increasing protected open space in the Kalamazoo area, the two Republican legislators had also been involved in the 1975 transfer of the Asylum Lake parcel to WMU with the identical restriction.

Rosine also mentioned the $1.5 million endowment established at the Kalamazoo Community Foundation in 1998-1999, but somehow left the impression that it was connected with the business park.  In fact, it was raised for the stewardship of the Asylum Lake Preserve, including its defense against future attempts to violate the conservation restrictions placed upon it.

The bill sponsored by Representative Jones is short.  If you leave out the legal descriptions of the parcels, it amounts to no more than four pages.  It is, nevertheless, a remarkable, almost magical, device.  It does two things:  The state adminstrative board will pay WMU a dollar for the Colony Farm Orchard.  The state administrative board will then sell it back to WMU for a dollar but with a new restriction as follows:

The property shall be used exclusively for the purpose of expanding and improving the business technology and research park located on western Michigan university’s Parkview campus.

You see why I call the bill magical.  It is like a stage magician’s cabinet.  The old conveyance with a conservation restriction goes in like the magician’s beautiful assistant. The door is closed and locked. Seconds later, when it’s reopened, the new conveyance comes out looking entirely different, rather like a goat, with a restriction that requires WMU to do exactly what it has always wanted to do with the orchard.

Oddly enough, the original conveyance with the restriction to open space, public park, or recreation use was not provided in the bill.  The Commerce Committee members, with the exception of Representative Jones, had no way of knowing prior to the meeting that it existed.

Tuesday night, the Oshtemo Township board seemed in their questions and discussion to be leaning toward the position that they would prefer that the Orchard be left as protected open space but that if it were converted, Oshtemo’s loss should be mitigated by the provision of other protected open space in some multiple of the acreage of the Orchard.  Jones and Rosine pointed out that time was too short for a discussion of such matters.  The bill would be taken up by the Commerce Committee the next day, and in response to a question, Representative Jones assured the Township Board that it would be approved.  Vice President Rosine promised Township Supervisor Libby Heiny-Cogswell that his office would be in touch with her to set up a meeting to talk about the mitigation matter.

In response to a question as to whether the bill could be fast-tracked in such a way that it might be passed by both House and Senate in a week (as had happened with an earlier bill which had targeted Oshtemo Township), Jones had said, no, the House was meeting the next day and then not again until the following Tuesday, 2 September.  He did not rule out the possibility that it would be taken up then (and approved, since the House has a Democratic majority).

View in Western Michigan University Business Park 27 July 2009. Photo by Richard Brewer

As a citizen of Oshtemo Township, I made a few remarks trying to correct some of the misleading statements.  I also pointed out that if the time ever came when more space was actually needed in the WMU business park, many other choices are available, including several parcels that WMU already owns in Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township.

Although WMU has sometimes given the impression that expansion room is urgently needed, three spaces in the business park are still unclaimed, at least two spaces have become vacant and available for lease, and a large area devoted to soccer fields occupies part of the business park and could be developed.  Besides, times are hard and several of the conditions that contributed to the relatively strong showing of the business park in the past may no longer apply.  It is by no means clear that any expansion room will be needed in the foreseeable future.

A brief account of the Oshtemo Board meeting was published in the Kalamazoo Gazette the next day.  Representative Jones was as good as his word, and the bill was unanimously adopted in the Commerce Committee on Wednesday and sent to the full house.  The Gazette reported that action also.

Today is Tuesday September 2.