Homeowners in the canal-lined Cass Lake neighborhood of West Bloomfield Township voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to dissolve their homeowners association and incorporate as Cass Lake Village, Oakland County's first new municipality in more than 60 years. The new village covers roughly 230 homes spread across less than a third of a square mile, home to a few hundred residents along five miles of canals. The vote caps years of struggle to pay for bridges, roads and a water system that had ballooned into a massive infrastructure deficit.
According to WXYZ Channel 7, residents approved the creation of Cass Lake Village with nearly 90 percent of the vote, while a separate measure adopting the village's charter passed with more than 80 percent support. Cass Lake Village is the first new village incorporated in Michigan in 27 years and the first formed in Oakland County in more than 60 years, according to the Office of U.S. Representative Haley Stevens. The community includes 15 bridges that the HOA had been solely responsible for maintaining for more than a century.
A $25 Million Bridge Deficit
Chris LaDuke said the neighborhood has accumulated a $25 million infrastructure deficit over 108 years, and that the average bridge maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation lasts about 80 years — far short of the age of some of the community's crossings. At least one bridge is more than 100 years old and had been at risk of closure to vehicular traffic because of its low safety rating, while building or repairing a single span now costs more than $1 million. West Bloomfield Township officials had also raised concerns about the bridges' condition as the deficit mounted, per that same reporting.
Cut Off by Their Own Canals
Joshua Barstow told the outlet that a bridge could collapse into the canal under the weight of a fire truck, underscoring why the deficit had become an emergency rather than a routine maintenance backlog. Some homes in the community are separated from the Michigan mainland by four to six sequential bridges, according to Civic Center TV, meaning a single structural failure could block emergency vehicles from reaching residents entirely.
From Private HOA to Public Village
The HOA had long been responsible for maintaining the neighborhood's bridges, roads and community water system, but Michigan's state infrastructure grants are available only to municipalities, not homeowners associations, the outlet reported. That mismatch left residents searching for years before they found infrastructure grants suited to the project, once incorporation became possible. U.S. Representative Haley Stevens worked with Zox HOA leadership and West Bloomfield Township officials to suggest village incorporation as a path forward, according to the same release from her office.
Ken Russell said forming the village was the only sensible way forward after other options had been exhausted, and Brik Pardo said the aging infrastructure was failing badly enough that creating a village was the necessary solution. Pardo told the outlet the community remains "one of the most beautiful places to live," even as it works to fund repairs the HOA could never manage alone.
A 1912 Canal Community Built for Summer Cottages
The neighborhood dates back more than 100 years, first developed in 1912 by real estate attorney and developer Joseph E. Sawyer, who dug canals connecting Cass Lake to Dollar Lake to sell summer cottage lots, according to the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society. Cass Lake itself is the largest body of water in Oakland County at 1,280 acres and the deepest at 123 feet, the historical society notes. Locals have nicknamed the community 'little Venice,' per the Zox HOA, whose boundaries run from Rosedale Drive on the west to Cass Lake on the south and east and the Clinton River to the north.
New Taxes, a New Council and the Same Emergency Crews
Under Michigan's Home Rule Village Act of 1909, an incorporated village remains part of its surrounding township, so villagers now vote and pay taxes in both jurisdictions, according to the Michigan Legislature. West Bloomfield Township will continue delivering police, fire, paramedic and library services, funded by the township taxes residents already pay. Residents no longer pay HOA dues or the looming special assessment that had threatened to cover the infrastructure gap on its own.
The path to incorporation began when Michigan's State Boundary Commission approved the Zox subdivision's incorporation on March 4, 2025, and Governor Gretchen Whitmer approved the proposed charter on May 8, authorizing Tuesday's referendum, according to the Office of the Governor of Michigan. Residents have already elected a new village council, whose initial members will serve through the November 2028 general election under the Cass Lake Village charter, before regular even-year municipal elections resume. Home values in the new village range from about $200,000 for modest homes to $2 million to $3 million for waterfront properties, per the Zox HOA, giving the council a tax base to draw on as it pursues the grants the HOA could never access.
