Homeowners and property owners along Indian Head Lodge Drive along with the Wright City Board of Alderman and Warren County commissioners met at the County Administration Building on July 17 to discuss the embattled roadway. 

Led by Wright City Aldermen Karey Owens and Don Andrews, residents on the road and its adjacent subdivisions heard several options on how they could attempt to rectify the issues with the road. 

Indian Head Lodge Drive

Indian Head Lodge Drive is a private road, and its ownership has been the subject of debate for many years, especially as the road has continued to fall into disrepair. As it sits currently, there are four landowners who own parts of the road as an easement. While Indian Head Lodge Drive itself is not located within Wright City limits, it is the only access road for three subdivisions, two of which are within city limits. 

As part of the city’s efforts to rectify the issue, the Wright City board conducted a title search to reveal the property owners whose land Indian Head Lodge Drive travels through. In that search they discovered four property owners: The heirs and devisees of the estate of Hally L. Barebo, who owns 20 feet, Ida Mae and Charles Witt, who own 362 feet, Schryver LLC who owns 190 feet and Wright City Alderman Ramiz Hakim along with his wife Rachel, who owns 10 feet. 

Public funds and a private road

Hakim said he was surprised to learn of his ownership on the road and has recused himself from any decisions or discussions of the road at Wright City board meetings as he described it as an obvious conflict of interest. 

He went so far as to say that even though his property would benefit from improvements to the road, he had consistently advocated for no public funds to be spent on its repair. 

“As far as I am concerned, this is a private road that needs to be brought up to city specs before it is taken in by the city or the county,” Hakim said. 

That has been the issue, as outlined by Owens and Andrews at the meeting during their presentation. The county has not expressed interest in repairing the road, and Wright Citycannot annex the road until it is up to city specifications, which would require the widening of the road and the addition of sidewalks. 

The Wright City board has also been resistant to spending any public dollars on repairing the road themselves, saying that it would be irresponsible to spend the money on a private road outside of city limits, and that their budget is too tight to consider the repairs anyway. 

Instead, Owens and Andrews provided several other options for how the homeowners along the road could rectify the issues on their own. 

Option one

Owens outlined the first of four options to citizens at the meeting. Members of the three homeowner’s association could raise money amongst themselves to pay to overlay the road, which would rectify some, but now all, of the road’s issues. 

The city estimated homeowners would have to spend roughly $64,000 to overlay the road, or about $260 per homeowner, which would be assessed by their respective HOAs. 

Owens admitted this was the cheapest option and would not bring the road up to city specifications, meaning Indian Head Lodge Drive would not be annexed by Wright City. 

“What this would look like, is your HOAs could vote to do two things, one, a one-time special assessment, it would be about $260 per lot to do an overlay, and then, planning for the future, add $15 for the next 15 years,” Owens said. 

A member of the Spring Lakes subdivision HOA spoke out during the meeting and said that this option would be a non-starter. Per the HOA bylaws, he said that legally, their HOA can only raise an additional $100 per homeowner per year on top of their existing dues, which would leave them well short of the $64,000 necessary for the overlay. 

Option two

The second option, outlined by Owens, was a neighborhood improvement district. 

The neighborhood improvement district, or NID, would involve officials from both the city and the county. Because of the required involvement of the county to manage the NID, the issue would have to go before the voters in an upcoming election. 

The funds would be raised through a special tax assessment for the improvements. Those improvements would bring the road up to Wright City specifications at which point the city board could vote to annex the road. 

Citizens at the meeting expressed concerns that the board may not decide to annex the road upon completion, and all the efforts would be for nothing. Wright City Mayor Michelle Heiliger, who was in attendance at the meeting, said if a NID was used, the city would write into the language of the NID that they would be required to annex the road upon its completion. 

Option three

Owens admitted that homeowners did also have the option to file a lawsuit against the owners of the road to maintain the road. She said that homeowners may have legal recourse to force the property owners to maintain the road. 

She did warn that this could be a lengthy, and costly endeavor as a lawsuit would have to move through the courts system, unless the homeowners decided to work with the property owners directly. 

Option four

The fourth and final option, presented at the meeting by Owens, was for homeowners to simply wait, and do nothing. 

“Final option, you could wait. Here’s your ‘do nothing,’ the pros are you don’t have to do anything, the cons are you don’t have a say in what happens next,” Owens said. 

She elaborated saying that homeowners could wait and see if another developer would come in who would be willing to bring the road up to city specifications in order for a new subdivision to be annexed, or to at least repair the road. 

Moving forward

Discussion continued for about another hour at the meeting following the options laid out by Owens and Andrews, and in the end it seemed that leaders from the respective HOAs were going to have to meet to discuss their options. 

When it comes to Wright City, Hakim said that at this time he did not expect any public dollars to be allocated to the repair of the road, and said that the board did not plan to allow any further developments on Indian Head Lodge Drive unless a developer was willing to take on the road repairs themselves. 

He said the decisions on what happens next rest solely with the homeowners and members of the HOAs that reside along the drive. He did say as a property owner, he was more than willing to work with those homeowners to find a tenable solution. 

“I think the meeting was clear, neither the city nor the county will be spending public funds on the road,” Hakim said.