Plymouth Residents Make Push to Keep Hollydale as Green Space
Should the Hollydale Golf Course be redeveloped into more homes? Or should it be preserved as green space? It’s an issue the Plymouth City Council will be hearing a lot more about in the weeks and months ahead.
This week residents filled the Plymouth City Council chambers to show support of keeping the property as green space. Hollydale has been a golf course since 1965 and is a family-run operation.
The owners, Rick and Lynette Deziel, are retiring. They have a deal to sell the land to a developer, which plans to build housing. While the city stresses there’s no complete application yet for a housing project, the city is doing fact-finding for any potential development. That includes collecting traffic data and working on an environmental assessment.
Residents believe putting homes on that property would erode the quality of life in Plymouth.
“I think we all understand that this is a big deal,” said Gery Haag, a Plymouth resident who spoke on behalf of eight neighborhoods near the golf course. “This is not just another farm field on the northwest side of Plymouth that gets sold and developed. This is a big deal. This may be the biggest deal the city has ever dealt with as far as developing and as far as rezoning.”
Haag says their neighborhood group wants to work with the city to explore other options. Ideas include having the city purchase the property for recreational use and forming a partnership with the Three Rivers Park District.
“We know this issue is a very sensitive issue out in the community, especially those that surround Hollydale Golf Course,” Plymouth Mayor Jeffry Wosje told the residents.
The Deziels previously declined an on-camera interview request with CCX News. They did say they hope to keep the course open through November.
