Village working with Bielinski to fix Lake Bluff roads

By Tracy Ouellette

SLN Staff

Village of East Troy Department of Public Works Director Jason Equitz said he met with representatives of Bielinski Homes the afternoon of Aug. 7 to get the roads in the Lake Bluff subdivision fixed.

At Village Board meeting later that night, Village Trustee Matt Johnson asked the issue to be put on a future agenda to address the concerns brought to the board about the subdivision’s roads by one of the residents.

Butch Rabay spoke to the board at the July 17 meeting about the situation in public participation. He said he felt he is not given all of the amenities the village has to offer even though he was a citizen of the village.

The roads in the Lake Bluff subdivision are not a part of the Village of East Troy because Bielinski is responsible to maintain those roads, but Rabay said they are not doing a good job. He told the board the “wedge” that was supposed to be installed from the roadway to the curb was never done and it’s been 10 years and the homeowners are still waiting.

Equitz said because the wedge wasn’t installed, the curb is getting beat up by the snowplows each winter and after so much time, the concern now is that the base of the roadway where the curb and road meet is failing.

Equitz said he met with Bielinski representatives in spring and thought the matter was resolved, but nothing had been done. On Monday, Equitz said he and a representative from the village’s engineer, Lynch and Associates, met with Bielinski representatives and their engineer to discuss how to fix the problem.

The base of the road is going to have to be tested to see if it is failing before a plan can be agreed upon to fix the problem. If the base is OK, Bielinski can install the wedge and the final surface. If the base has failed, the curb and construction road will have to be removed and reinstalled after the issues with the base are corrected.

Equitz told the board he thought Bielinski would be fixing the road in the near future.

Trustee Forty Renucci asked Equitz “what was different” now as opposed to his spring meeting with the home builder when nothing was done.

Equitz said now that the engineers were involved he thought the project would gain some traction.

Equitz told the board he was surprised he hadn’t had more complaints from the residents in the subdivision about the road and that it if he lived on the road, he would be complaining to Bielinski, as it is their responsibility to fix the problem.

According to the developer’s agreement with the village, Bielinski doesn’t have to complete the road until 90 percent of the lots are built in the subdivision. Because of the Great Recession, building slowed to a crawl for quite some time and only picked up in the last couple of years.

Trustee Ann Zess said it was a mistake for the village to have agreed upon a 90 percent completion rate and said the village should “never” agree to that again in another developer’s agreement.

 

 

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