Subdivisions looking to the town for help in maintaining their roads will need to make sure the roads are already in decent shape.
The Town Council agreed Wednesday it would issue a resolution putting the onus of road repair on homeowners associations. Town Engineer Jeff Pintar conducted a study on Tulip and Daisy Courts after a resident brought their condition to the council last month.
Pintar agreed the two cul-de-sacs were in disrepair, with surface cracking and needing storm sewers, among other issues. Additionally, the houses sit lower than the streets.
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Patching and repaving the courts would mitigate the issues to a degree, but there would always be issues with standing water, Pintar said. And if the town went in for full repairs, the houses’ position relative to the roads would put them at risk for water flowing toward them.
Town Manager Bob Volkmann said there was no precedence governing whether the town has to maintain roads in subdivisions, and that subdivision developers often ask for reductions in right-of-ways, making things trickier for repair.
The resolution, which would require a subdivision’s roads to be maintained at “town standards” before it’ll consider taking over their maintenance, would reduce the “flood of homeowners associations” coming to the town for repairs, Councilman Jerry Tippy, R-1, said.
“We want to avoid having to pick winners and losers,” Tippy said
Tippy initially made a motion to amend the applicable ordinance, but Town Attorney Dave Austgen said a resolution formalizing the policy was the needed action.
On another matter, a homeowner on the south end of Foxwood Villas will start the process of annexing into the town. The annexation will bring part of the Pennsy Greenway bike trail into the town, Volkmann said.
The annexation process should take 90 days, Volkmann said. Once complete, the trail’s connection point becomes the town’s responsibility.
In other business, the council voted unanimously to renew its agreements with Griffith and St. John for building inspection and permit reviewing services; to accept the $29,426 fire service agreement with St. John Township to cover the township’s unincorporated areas; accepted the new Franciscan hospital in Munster as one of the medical centers the Schererville Fire Department can transport; and asked Volkmann to rebid the town’s asphalt, concrete and landscaping services.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter with the Post-Tribune.