MARQUETTE — Marquette Township has inked a $250,000 deal to purchase 30 acres adjacent to its current well field property near Grove Street.

The move marks an effort to preserve recreational opportunities in the area, officials say.

The purchase of the property, which had been considered by a private developer in 2018, will be financed with a five-year installment loan that will be paid back via the general fund.

After a closed session on Dec. 18, the Marquette Township Board voted to approve the purchase of the parcel, which north of the township’s well field and east of the road leading to it.

The goal of the purchase was to protect the property “from anybody buying it or developing it,” Supervisor Lyn Durant said during the board’s Feb. 5 meeting.

“One of the things we really wanted to focus on was trying to protect as much land as we could, and we realized that the best way to do that is to own it. We feel this is very important. There are a lot of trails down there, a lot of people use them,” Durant told the board. “If you had houses being built back there and roads coming through, it’s just not going to be the same. So, we decided that that was pretty important for our people and the surrounding communities to share, too.”

The Noquemanon Trail Network traverses the parcel from east to west — offering a connection to the Greywalls Golf Course.

The next step in the process of protecting the property, which is currently zoned Rural Residential, would be to rezone it, Township Planning Administrator Jason McCarthy said in a Wednesday email.

“Staff is recommending to the planning commission to rezone the parcel and two adjacent parcels to Forest Recreation,” McCarthy said. “In our opinion, it makes sense to rezone the property, as there (are) NTN trails located on it and the township has no desire to develop it. We’d like to preserve it in its natural state as recreational property, thus protecting it from development.”

The planning commission was expected to address the issue during a Wednesday meeting, but it was canceled due to weather-related issues, McCarthy said.

The meeting was rescheduled and will take place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Marquette Township Hall.

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242. Her email address is lbowers@miningjournal.net.