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However, the legislative history of
the Municipal Services Act reflects
how deep the underlining roots of
the problem are and that its ultimate
passage was the obvious result of
a political compromise between the
competing interests. Left unresolved
is the inequity community associa-
tions continuing paying double for
municipal services. In an early ver-
sion of the bill introduced to the
Senate on September 19, 1988, the
breadth of reimbursable items was
much broader than ultimately signed
into law. Specifically, in 1989 it was
proposed that municipalities provide,
or otherwise reimburse, community
associations to “maintain and repair
water lines, storm sewers and sanitary
sewers beneath the roads and streets.”
An earlier version of the bill introduced
on September 19, 1988 went even
further and required municipalities to
either reimburse community associations
or otherwise maintain both “detention
and retention basins, provided such
structures [were] used primarily for the
controlling of storm water runoff and not
for recreational use.”
Today, with capital improvements such
as water lines, storm and sanitary sew-
ers, retention and detention basins and
fire hydrants growing older, owners in
community associations are asking the
same questions that were being asked
in the 1980s: “Why should they, as res-
idents of a community association who
are paying taxes for water lines, storm
and sanitary sewers, public retention
and detention basins and fire hydrants
for others within their municipality, not
be reimbursed by their municipality to
maintain these items in their communities
since they are paying for these very
same public improvements by way of
association maintenance fees?”
The answer is simple. Municipalities
do not want to pay for capital
improvements, the maintenance of
capital improvements or the replace-
ment of capital improvements, if not
obligated. The legal issue is whether
community associations are being
‘double-taxed’ or not. A more subtle
question is “are high density commu-
nities with shorter water lines, shorter
storm sewer lines and shorter sanitary
sewer lines actually overpaying for
their municipal services compared
to other residents in their municipality
who live in less densely developed
areas with longer water lines, longer
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