'Save Lakeside Woods' group buying land back from developer

 

CHIKAMING TOWNSHIP, Mich.-- Tom Gold learned a Colorado developer bought 16 acres of Lakeside Woods, with plans to build 16 cottages, which Gold said would overburden the neighborhood.

"It wasn't just single-family homes, a lot of them were going to be rented out, if not all of them rented out, we could've had upwards of 125 people here every weekend," he said.

Gold and other neighbors formed a group, "Save Lakeside Woods," with Gold serving as president of a 5-member board.

"We offered to buy it from him, and he saw how much trouble he was going to have with the neighborhood, and he decided that he was better off selling it," Gold said. "So, we have a land contract in place to purchase the land from him. So far, he's received 2 payments totaling $400 thousand of $1.2 million."

The group is now in a fundraising period, trying to raise what remains of the $1.2 million land cost.

The goal, of course, is to save and preserve the wetlands, but also protect the neighborhood from being overburdened by overdevelopment, the group states.

"The environment is changing because of climate change. It's becoming far more temperate," Gold said. "The wetlands back there are expanded enormously in the last 20 years it grew by like ten-fold."

A majority of the money raised so far is from an anonymous benefactor, Gold said, who will also give the group a bridge loan if they fall short of any upcoming payments.

Only about an acre and a half of trees were cleared prior to the land sale.

The wetlands portion of the woods, Gold said, will be turned over to Chikaming Open Lands, a local land conservancy.

And there are plans for a possible phase two, once the purchase of the land is complete.

"The upland portion, we would like to do a nature center and botanical garden," Gold said.

The "Save Lakeside Woods" group can be found on Facebook and their website.