Asylum Lake Preserve: WMU trustees vote Thursday on handing the 274-acre Kalamazoo preserve to Kalamazoo County Parks

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Western Michigan University’s Board of Trustees will vote Thursday on giving Kalamazoo County control of the Asylum Lake Preserve, the 274-acre stretch of woods, prairie and water inside the city of Kalamazoo that WMU has looked after since the state handed it the land in the 1970s.

The trustees meet at noon Thursday, Oct. 29, in the Student Center Ballroom, 1070 Loop Road, and online. The Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners is set to take its own vote at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4, at the County Administration Building, 201 W. Kalamazoo Ave., according to the Asylum Lake Preservation Association.

What the deal does. Under the proposed interlocal agreement in the trustees’ meeting packet, Kalamazoo County Parks and Recreation would take over day-to-day management on Jan. 1, 2027. The county would have to use the land only for public park, recreation or open space, keep it free and open to the public, and let researchers and schools keep using it. County parks already run a similar-size preserve, the Woollam Nature Preserve.

The county could not simply be handed the deed. A 1975 state law, amended in 1976, transferred the land to WMU on the condition that it be used “solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes,” and only the Legislature can change that. So the agreement commits WMU to seek a new state law letting it deed the property to the county, with the same restrictions. If that hasn’t happened by Dec. 31, 2029, the agreement ends unless both sides extend it.

What changes for visitors. Little on paper. A separate document would rewrite the preserve’s 2004 conservation restrictions only to reflect the new manager, leaving their substance unchanged, and those rules would win if any county park rule conflicted with them. Undoing them later would take a three-fourths vote of the county commission after a public hearing. The Asylum Lake Policy and Management Council, the WMU-appointed group of neighbors, environmental groups and faculty that has guided the preserve, would be dissolved. It recommended the change 14-0 after a public hearing Oct. 1.

Who pays. The packet says WMU takes on no new financial obligations. Spending on the preserve is limited to the yearly earnings of the Asylum Lake Preservation Fund, plus private donations and grants. That endowment was set up in 1998 with $1.3 million from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation and $200,000 from the city. It would stay a separate fund at the foundation, kept apart from the county’s general fund, with the county as its new beneficiary. Anything the county chooses to add from its own budget is up to commissioners.

WMU says the switch puts the preserve with a public body “whose core responsibilities include the care and management of parkland,” while the university’s constitutional job is running a state university.

Also on Thursday’s agenda. Trustees will be asked to let WMU register with the Guizhou Provincial Tax Bureau in China. WMU has run a joint institute with Guizhou University of Finance and Economics since 2016, and the Chinese university has paid taxes there on WMU’s behalf. A tax determination letter now says the Chinese university cannot send money owed to WMU unless the university registers as a permanent establishment in China, according to the agenda item. WMU would hire an international accounting firm to handle it. The board will also take up its five-year capital outlay plan and a labor contract with the stagehands’ union.

Sources:
Western Michigan University Board of Trustees, “Board of Trustees to meet in formal session Thursday,” Oct. 27, 2026 (time, place, agenda, public comment), https://wmich.edu/trustees/bulletins/board-trustees-meet-oct-29
WMU Board of Trustees, Agenda Item 12, “Asylum Lake Interlocal Agreement and Declaration of Conservation Restrictions,” Oct. 29, 2026 (274 acres, 1975 PA 316 and 1976 PA 272, Jan. 1, 2027 start, Dec. 31, 2029 deadline, 14-0 council vote, endowment, three-fourths vote, Woollam preserve), https://files.wmich.edu/s3fs-public/2026-10/asylum_lake_interlocal_agreement_and_declaration_of_conservation_restrictions.pdf
WMU Board of Trustees, Agenda Item 13 B, “Authorization to Submit a Tax Registration to the People’s Republic of China,” Oct. 29, 2026, https://files.wmich.edu/s3fs-public/2026-10/authorization_to_submit_a_tax_registration_to_the_peoples_republic_of_china.pdf
Asylum Lake Preservation Association, “Voting Dates Set for Transfer of Asylum Lake Preserve Management” (Student Center Ballroom, county vote Nov. 4), https://www.asylumlakepreservationassociation.org/news/voting-dates-set-for-transfer-of-asylum-lake-preserve-management
WWMT, “WMU trustees to consider transfer of Asylum Lake Preserve stewardship to Kalamazoo County,” Oct. 28, 2026, https://wwmt.com/news/local/wmu-trustees-to-consider-transfer-of-asylum-lake-preserve-stewardship-to-kalamazoo-county-board-legislation-capital-master-plan
Photo: Gpwitteveen, “Asylum Lake.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped and color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asylum_Lake.jpg

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Tags: Kalamazoo · Western Michigan University · Asylum Lake Preserve · Kalamazoo County Parks · Parks · Taxpayers