Mallard Point drainage vote pushed back to April

Maybe on April 6, Mallard Point and Rolling Oaks residents will get a better idea of how much they'll be paying to fix their drainage.

The Sugar Grove village board last week tabled the matter to next month after a trustee convinced the board it needed more information. The board has postponed a vote on proposing a special assessment several times since it held a public hearing on the matter in September.

Mallard Point residents have complained for several years about bad drainage and basement flooding. Stormwater is supposed to drain through to a wetland, then to a detention pond off-site, then to a ditch at Jericho Road. But groundwater is also draining into the wetland and the pond. There are broken field tiles throughout Mallard Point, the pond has become clogged in areas with plants and some of restrictor pipes weren't installed where they were supposed to be. Rolling Oaks subdivision is included, although it is not experiencing problems, because it uses the detention pond.

Village President Sean Michels said the board wants to learn the results of soil boring tests to see if work can be done to lower the water table in the area. Engineers are still working on plans to fix and add more field tiles to Mallard Point.

Last week the board did learn the costs just for investigating the problem so far, and to fix and maintain the detention pond for three years: $874 for the "average" ($89,803 equalized assessed value, about $285,000 market value) Mallard Point property, and $590 for an average home ($60,611 EAV, $197,000 market) in Rolling Oaks. Those costs could be charged to the homeowners through a special assessment.

Residents have complained about the village's oversight of the construction of Mallard Point, which was built beginning in the 1990s, saying the land had drainage issues even before the construction. Michels said that Kane County and Army Corps of Engineers officials experts signed off on the plans at the time, as did the village.

"Stormwater management has changed so dramatically from the time the subdivision was proposed in the early '90s," he said.