Granville residents pack meeting, urge trustee to resign after land sale to New Albany Co.

Residents packed the Granville Township Trustees meeting Wednesday, outraged that one trustee sold land to The New Albany Co. that could potentially be used to pump millions of gallons of water a day from Granville Township to New Albany.

There was standing-room only inside the township's service complex as residents expressed their anger, shock and frustration over Trustee Dan VanNess's recent sale of a 106-acre property to The New Albany Co. for $2.67 million. Multiple residents called on VanNess to resign.

Resident Chris Crader said through this deal, VanNess breached the very definition of trustee.

"You've removed any trust that anybody put into you to do this job. It's a shame," Crader said.

VanNess said he wouldn't resign. He never apologized to the residents during the meeting, but in an interview after the meeting said he regrets selling the property to The New Albany Co.

"I wish I hadn't done it," he said. "All I can do is try to step forward and try to do better for the township and hopefully reacquire people's faith in what we do."

As previously reported by The Reporting Project, The New Albany Co.’s MBJ Holdings LLC bought the property along Moots Run Road from VanNess on Sept. 19. In a preliminary meeting Sept. 22, New Albany officials met with Licking County officials about permits to work in a floodplain and for stormwater runoff before drilling several wells that each could produce 1 million gallons of water a day.

Water and sewer infrastructure has been a hot topic in Licking County as the area prepares for the growth expected to follow Intel to Licking County. The Licking County Commissioners approved expanding the Southwest Licking Community Water and Sewer District's service area in October 2022. This spring the utility district bought nearly 100 acres of St. Albans Township land for a future wastewater treatment plant.

Since the October 2022 decision by the commissioners, the townships of St. Albans, Liberty, Monroe and Granville, the city of Johnstown and villages of Alexandria and Granville have been pursing a regional partnership for water and sewer service. And now the utility district and the village of Granville and city of Johnstown are vying to take over utility service for the village of Alexandria.

Trustee Bryn Bird said there has been no coordination from county and state officials on the future of water and sewer service in Licking County, creating a "wild west."

"There's no coordination, and it is creating an anarchy situation in all the townships that is very stressful," Bird said.

VanNess said during Wednesday's meeting that from the time an MBJ Holdings agent first approached him in summer 2022, he was told the property would be used for wetlands mitigation. He talked with MBJ officials about turning the property into public land and having the area be a nature preserve. VanNess said everything sounded like a great plan and he entered into a one-year contract with MBJ Holdings. The company took until the last day of the contract to exercise its option on the property, he said.

VanNess said MBJ Holdings officials did not reveal their true intentions to him, but residents found that argument hard to believe. They said because of his position as a trustee, VanNess would have a better sense of the conversations happening about development.

Bird said she and fellow trustee Rob Schaadt were aware last year about the contract on the property and she alerted village of Granville officials, who then approached VanNess about the village acquiring the property instead.

VanNess said his attorney told him that trying to get out of the contract with MBJ would be costly and could take a long time.

The village, however, offered to buy the land from VanNess and cover all legal fees.

Bird said township and village officials were told throughout the past year that the property would be used for wetlands mitigation. Granville officials were not part of the Sept. 22 meeting between the county and New Albany and found out after the fact that New Albany was investigating potential wells on the property.

Part of the reason residents were upset is that they say VanNess didn't do more to protect the land, such as putting deed restrictions in place or placing the land into the township's Open Space Program, which protects land from future development. Bird said the property could not be entered into the program because VanNess and Schaadt would have needed to abstain from a vote — VanNess because it was his property and Schaadt because VanNess rents other farmland from him.

Historically, the township has not entered land in the floodplain into the Open Space Program because there has been no threat for that to develop, and preserving land from development is the main reason for the program, VanNess said.

As of now, The New Albany Co. has not applied for permits to drill wells, and everything is speculative, Bird said. Trustees are formulating a plan to protect the aquifer, however, Schaadt didn't want to reveal the specific actions publicly.

"Ryan Day's not calling Jim Harbaugh and saying, 'This is our playbook for the Michigan game.' I don't think it's wise for me to say this is the list of things we are doing," he said. "We suspect they're coming to drill, and we're preparing to do everything we can to combat that."

mdevito@gannett.com

740-607-2175

Twitter: @MariaDeVito13

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Granville residents urge trustee to resign after New Albany land sale