March 22, 2007

By Diane Chiddister

Pre-annexation agreements are enforceable, according to Assistant Village Solicitor Shannon Martin in an interview last week.

“We wouldn’t advise Council to enter into contracts that couldn’t be enforced,” she said.

A pre-annexation agreement is a contract entered into by a municipality and landowners in which all parties agree to conditions regarding the annexation. In this way, pre-annexation agreements give municipalities more control over potential annexations, according to Martin.

During the Fogg farm discussion, several villagers have questioned whether or not a pre-annexation agreement is enforceable. But it is rare to have a situation in which the parties to a pre-annex agreement don’t uphold their promises, Martin said, because the disagreements have been worked out prior to signing the agreement.

“As long as there’s a meeting of the minds, you’ll have a contract,” she said.

While the pre-annex agreement that the Village is negotiating with Fogg farm owner Doug Miller is fairly unusual in its number of conditions, Martin said she is aware of at least one unusual pre-annexation agreement upheld by the courts in the past.

Regarding enforcing the agreement, Martin said that the remedies, or penalities, for noncompliance need to be appropriate. For instance, she said, if an instance of noncompliance would cause financial loss for a municipality, the remedy should be a monetary fine.

In the informal agreement presented at the March 19 Council meeting, the Village and Miller agreed that noncompliance would result in detachment, or reversal of the annexation.