The Georgetown Township Board approved the purchase of two parcels of farmland for $1.4 million. According to Township Superintendent Justin Stadt, the purchase has been in the making for almost a year.
“This all started when the largest vacant landowner in Georgetown Township passed away last fall.”
That landowner was Wayne Haverdink, and his family had no plans to farm the land. The purchased parcels include 8.9 acres in the 8000 block of 40th Avenue and 24.5 acres in the 4000 block of Bauer Road.
“This land is adjacent to high transmission and a substation. Typically, those areas have data centers, batteries and solar plants, so we took that out of the conversation.”
While Stadt says the township purchasing the two parcels prevents the land from being developed into those types of projects, they are planning for the future.
“If you look at the parcels around the area that we bought is primarily owned by developers now so, in the future, I don’t know when, it will maybe someday not look like farmland. It may look like residential neighborhoods.”
Stadt says this is one of the last sections of the township that has not been developed, so purchasing the land allows them to preserve it as agricultural for now and sell it to developers 20 or 30 years from now if necessary.
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