Board opts to look into lagoon land sale
Property would become permanent conservation easement
The Chesterfield Township Board of Trustees is going forward with a possible sale of property it owns.
A letter of intent approved by a 5-2 at an April 12 meeting is the first step in negotiations with the Six Rivers Conservancy to pay the township to convert 64 acres located north of the Selfridge Air National Guard (SANG) Base near I-94 into a conservation easement.
The property bordered by the freeway on the north and west and residential neighborhoods to the east and south and is known as the North Lagoons as it formerly operated as a retention basin until sale and drainage began in the early 1990s.
The conservancy will be working with Macomb County and the Department of Defense to keep the property in its natural state rather than move forward with any future development of the land.
“The Selfridge Air National Guard Base Commission Council is in favor of preserving the for the conservancy effort,” President of the SANG Community Council President Drema Isaac said. “It will safeguard the continued viability of the base.”
Six Rivers must first secure grant funding from the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program through the Department of Defense.
Conservatory Executive Director Chris Bunch said the grant would cover half the cost of the sale, while Six Rivers would generate the remainder through private donations.
An environmental assessment must also be done and Macomb County has committed to cover the cost of a final appraisal of the parcel.
The sticking point for some residents and Trustees is that the deal would convert the property into a conservation easement in perpetuity.
“Another way to look at this, is that it handcuffs future generations,” Trustee David Joseph said of the proposed deal. “If you take the money now, anything that could potentially be done with that land decades from now is no longer a possibility.”
The financial figures mentioned by the board and the public as a potential price for the property ranged between $600,000 and $675,000, but township Attorney Bob Seibert tried to temper those expectations.
“I suspect if you sent out a professional real estate appraiser to appraise property that is next to Selfridge Air Force Base that was a former lagoon, it’s probably worth a heck of a lot less than everybody here thinks its worth,” he said.
Seibert also summed up what the final outcome of the deal between Six Rivers and the township would look like.
“We are going to give them an interest in this
property, in this case forever, that will say to them ‘we as a township are giving up our rights to use this property forever and in return you give us a check’,” Seibert said.
Supervisor Brad Kersten said that there has been little to no interest from developers in the property over the past three decades and that simply agreeing to talk with Six Rivers is a harmless proposition.
“We are going to have sit down with the conservancy and see what we can and cannot do,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything if we don’t want to and we can just leave it as it is if we choose to.”
“This (Letter of Intent) is not binding. This is simply to get more information and take another step in the process and I don’t see any harm in that,” Clerk Cindy Berry said.
Joseph, who along with Trustee Hank Anderson voted against moving forward, said, “I feel like this conservation easement is a liquidation sale.”
There is a preliminary 45-day timeframe for the two sides to begin discussions, but Seibert said the process could continue beyond that window.
Kersten said any action the township takes will be brought back at a public meeting in the future.