Shorewood Residents Show Strong Support for Sewer Plan, Survey Says

By a wide margin, the majority of Shorewood residents support the village’s comprehensive approach to faulty sewers, a new survey shows.

The survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Urban Initiative and Research on behalf of the village revealed that 78 percent of Shorewood property owners who responded approve of the village's large-scale sewer improvement plan.

A total of 1,295 property owners responded to the survey sent out in July, or 39.5 percent of those who received it. The survey has a 2.2 percent margin of error.

Shorewood approved its , which calls for separating combined sanitary and stormwater sewers in much of Shorewood east of North Oakland Avenue, directing rain runoff on the street toward the Milwaukee River instead of Lake Michigan, and addressing leaky laterals, or the sewer pipe running from homes to the village system.

Officials plan to fund the 10-year project through a mixture of funding sources, including property taxes, sanitary sewer utility user fees, a newly created stormwater utility fund and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District grants. Survey results show 45 percent of respondents preferred using multiple funding sources.

The survey also showed nearly two-thirds of property owners are concerned about basement backups, 34 percent favor the current 10-year construction timeline, while 37 percent prefer a longer construction period and 12 percent prefer a shorter period of construction. And 58 percent agreed with the proposed plan when it comes to not using special assessments to fund sewer projects.

Village Manager Chris Swartz said a special meeting will be scheduled in November to discuss the survey results and for the Village Board to possibly finalize a funding plan.

Shorewood has already started some work on sewers as part of road reconstruction on North Downer Avenue, over the summer. Other projects could begin in the spring.

For more information about the sewer plan, visit Shorewood's website.