Western Springs Settles Dispute With Neighborhood Group

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL – After a long dispute, the Western Springs Village Board this week settled with a neighborhood group over drainage improvements.

Trustees approved an agreement with the Ridgewood Oaks Homeowners Association.

At the meeting, the village's attorney, Anne Skrodzki, said the town had performed engineering work on a detention basin for the neighborhood of condos as it prepared to expand the basin.

But a dispute arose over whether the association would use the village's engineering, she said. The village sought the association's reimbursement of $188,000 in engineering fees.

"The dispute never ripened into court litigation," she said.

The agreement calls for the basin to be enlarged beyond what was originally planned, a benefit for the public, she said.

In return, the village waived the engineering fees.

The board unanimously voted for the settlement. Trustee Philip Nawrocki was absent.

"It's been a long time," Village President Heidi Rudolph said. "I'm glad to see it resolved for all parties."

In 2020, the association appeared ready to sign an agreement with the village for a drainage project.

But then a few members of the condo association came forward to oppose the costs under the agreement. The project was derailed.

At a 2021 Village Board meeting, the village attorney told trustees that the association had committed to pay the legal fees, even if the group pulled the plug on the project.

At the time, officials said the project was required by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which said the condo group's drainage system failed to meet minimum standards.