Track Ordered Demolished by County Officials

This is wrong.

Waukesha County officials have ordered a town man to remove his 10-acre private dirt bike track, saying it was built illegally behind his home without required grading and fill permits.

The county Park and Land Use Department gave Paul Hochmuth and his family a July 11 deadline to either remove the dirt ramps or apply for a conditional use permit to allow its continued use.

Hochmuth said Tuesday that he had not decided what to do. But he said he hoped he could find a solution that would resolve his neighbors’ concerns about noise and dust but allow his son, an award-winning amateur motocross competitor, to continue to use the track as a practice facility.

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Neighbors have been complaining about Hochmuth’s track since shortly after he built it in 1995. Many residents moved in after the track was built, but they say the track has grown in size and use as Hochmuth’s son, Greg, now 26, got more involved in motocross events.

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Hochmuth has been down this road before.

In 2004 he tried to resolve neighborhood complaints by applying for county grading permits to build an $8,000 berm.

He said he spent more than $2,000 on the berm plans. The county held a public hearing, and the closest neighbor, Rachel Glennon, said the large berm would be worse to live with than the noise and dust.

Faced with opposition, Hochmuth withdrew his request. And for reasons that Hochmuth could not explain Tuesday, the county did not try to enforce its grading and fill rules or order the track removed.

“The county was out here,” Hochmuth said of the 2004 berm request. “The Army Corps of Engineers was out there. The DNR was out there. I had six state and federal governmental agencies walking my property and they had no problem with my track at that time, so it’s a little after the fact, which is frustrating.”

Hochmuth clearly has done everything reasonable to comply with the law and accommodate his neighbors’ concerns, and they change the rules on him.