View Blueberry Hill in a larger map
The Twin Lakes Village Board decided Monday against issuing a special assessment on 35 some property owners in the second addition of the Blueberry Hill Subdivision in order to finish paving on Swallow Raod.
Instead, the village will pay to have the paving done and then continue to pursue the developer who abandoned the subdivision for the payment of the improvement.
A public hearing at which several affected property owners spoke out against the fairness of the special assessment preceded the vote.
A prime point of contention for the residents was that a letter of credit or performance bond from the developer, which could have been used in such an instance as arose with the subdivision, was apparenmtly inadvertantly never arranged for by the village.
“If it wasn’t done, then someone dropped the ball,” said resident David Wagner. “If the village of Twin Lakes dropped the ball, you can’t pass it on to a limited number of homeowners. Frankly, someone should be losing their job.”
Trustees that spoke Monday night agreed with the residents.
“I’m going to agree with the people out there,” said Trustee Jeremy Knoll. “If we dropped the ball, then we have to figure something out.”
The cost of the Blueberry Hill work is about $41,000. It was approved as part of $146,000 in road work to be done this season by the village.
The Blueberry Hill Subdivision second addition, on the village’s southwest side, was approved in 2005. The village has so far been unsuccessful in finding developer Rick Stoughtenger or his company LGF Construction Inc.
But board members were adamant about pursuing every legal avenue possible to recover the costs from LGF or Stoughtenger, who signed a personal guarantee to be responsible for costs related to the subdivision’s developers agreement, which included paving the roads.
“I would hope that it is our attitude to go after this guy as hard as we can…” Trustee Thomas Connolly said.
There are 17 completed homes in the subdivision and 41 total lots. (See area identified by blue rectangle in above map.)
