Village OKs easement agreement with homeowners association

Menomonee Falls - The Village of Menomonee Falls on Monday entered into an easement agreement with the Prairie Walk Condominium Homeowner's Association to prevent future issues concerning the private roadways in that area of the village.

The Prairie Walk Subdivision is home to detached units built in the early 2000s on the south side of the village, north of Silver Spring Road. The roads in that area will soon undergo maintenance to bring them up to standard, which includes work on curbs, gutters and streets.

This will be the last road work in the subdivision paid for by the condo owners.

This cost totals $51,000 and will fall on the condominium owners, said Village Manager Mark Fitzgerald. After this repair work, the roads in the subdivision will be maintained as public streets going into the future.

Each condo owner will be assessed individually by the village to determine how much of the $51,000 they owe. Residents can pay in one lump sum on their tax bill or enter into a ten-year installment plan, said Trustee Michael McDonald.

Road work will start in spring of 2013 into fall.

"The concern the village has is the thinking that this area was inherently unstable because there's not a lot of units for the amount of street service," Fitzgerald said. "If you play this out long term and don't get subsequent development there, there will be too few units paying for too much road surface and that's very unstable."

He said there are similar problems in surrounding communities, such as Brookfield, that have led to lawsuits with the village. The village is entering into the easement agreement to prevent those situations.

"We wanted to get in front of the issue," Fitzgerald said.

Members of the homeowner's association agreed with the deal, citing financial concerns for future road work. The association currently takes care of all the roads, from crack sealing to snow plowing.