Letter: Why We Want to Sell Our Family Property to Related Digital

To the Saline Township Community, the Editor,

To those of you who don’t know, we have agreed to sell several parcels of land to Related Digital. They plan to build a data center there, on the western edge of Saline Township, where the ITC Transmission line crosses US-12. We’ve requested that Saline Township rezone our property from A-1 (Agricultural) to I-1 (Industrial). Without the rezoning, the data center will not be built.

We want to share with you some of our thoughts on this process and hopefully put some misconceptions to rest. As many of you already know, our family ties to Saline Township go back generations. We know from watching our dad and uncle that being a farmer is hard; it’s one of the hardest and most noble things someone can do with their life. We also know that many farmers are quietly (and sometimes not-so quietly) proud of their connections to their farmland, and want nothing more than to preserve the agricultural heritage of this area.

But we have to be honest: neither of us are farmers nor will we ever be farmers. Knowing that, our dad and uncle still left their land to us. We want to be clear that regardless of the Board’s decision on the rezoning request, the four parcels of our property included in Related Digital’s proposal won’t remain farmland. We have already terminated the Farmland Development Rights Agreements on those parcels. The only outstanding question is how will this land be developed? We want to make sure it’s put to the best use for us and for the Township as a whole. We think that the proposed data center is the best future use of our property, and we believe the facts back this up.

If people haven’t done so, we encourage them to go to the Saline Township website and look at the documents themselves. Look at the site plan and see that the data center will be cooled with air, not ground water. Look at the geotechnical drawings and see the berms and landscaping that will be installed to help it blend in with our landscape. Look at the traffic study and see that MDOT believes this project will cause “little or no delay” on Michigan Avenue. Look at the noise study and see that the loudest anticipated noise will be that of a normal conversation. Look at the rezoning conditions and see that 75% of the site will be kept as green space.

If the land is not rezoned, we’ll explore other development options. Under the current A-1 zoning, a utility-scale solar farm or several hundred housing units could be placed on the property. Either of those would cause much more stress on infrastructure and the natural environment. They would permanently alter the fabric of that part of Saline Township, and generate just a small fraction of the long-term tax revenues that the Township, the County, and the School District will see from a data center.

The tax revenue from the data center project would let Saline Township increase services while reducing everyone else’s tax burden. That would let others preserve their farms, and the agricultural heritage of Saline Township. The development of our farm does not have to mean the loss of anyone else’s. It could even mean the preservation of others.

Thank you,

Amy Marr and John Feldkamp

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