By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
With an unanimous vote Monday night, the members of the East Troy Village Board let Bielinski Homes know they wasn’t happy with the delay in getting the roads fixed in the Lake Bluff subdivision.
The board voted to suspend issuing building and occupancy permits to Bielinski until the roads are repaired.
“We’re no further on this than we were in spring,” Public Works Director Jason Equitz said. “Bielinski drug us along a bit.”
Equitz said they tested the roadway by driving a partially filled gravel truck on it and the base failed, which was something they were worried about because a wedge wasn’t installed resulting in damage to roads and curbs from the snowplows.
Equitz expressed his frustration with Bielinski’s lack of action and advised the board the village should not accept the roads in the state they were in and said it was “time to make them see” that they needed to fix this problem.
The roads in the Lake Bluff subdivision are not a part of the Village of East Troy. The subdivision is 10 years old and 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. The subdivision is about 80 percent complete now because the Great Recession slowed building for quite some time and only picked up in the last couple of years.
However, the roads in the subdivision have deteriorated because they weren’t designed to be in use this long.
The matter came before the board at the July 17 meeting when Lake Bluff homeowner Butch Rabay told the board about the situation and the problems it was creating for the residents in the subdivision. At that time, Equitz said he met with Bielinski representatives in spring and thought the matter was resolved, but nothing had been done.
Equitz then called in the village engineer, Lynch and Associates, to assess the situation and they met with Bielinski and everyone agreed the first step was to see if the base had failed. At the July meeting, Equitz said Bielinski would be fixing the roads “soon.”
That has not happened and Rabay again attended Monday night’s board meeting to ask the village to step in. He asked that there be at least two public meetings held by the village before Bielinski was allowed any further development.
The board members went a step further in their decision and said Bielinski had, had enough time to remedy the situation and now was the time for action.
“It’s time to say what we need and for them to do it,” Village Board President Scott Seager said.
Trustee John J. Jacoby asked if there was an even more severe consequence the village could impose on Bielinski than just denying the construction company the permits. The board briefly discussed looking into the bond Bielinski posted with the village for the subdivision and instructed village attorney, Linda Gray, and staff to bring that information back.
For now, Bielinski Homes will be unable to pull construction and occupancy permits, which the board members hoped would “get their attention.”
Trustee Forty Renucci didn’t think that was going to be a problem.
“I can guess you will see a visit from the Bielinski Homes attorney,” he told Gray.
“Yes, we probably will,” she replies with a chuckle.
