The Wright City Board of Aldermen approved a plat for the Gettysburg Commons subdivision after a lengthy discussion with the builder over the city’s requirements regarding the maintenance of roads.

Monte Cannon with Cannon Builders came to the Sept. 25 board meeting seeking clarifications on the city’s requirements for the submitted plat. Cannon said that when he submitted plat six for the subdivision his company was not subject to any street repair, but now with plat seven he is being required to fix existing city streets, some over 20 years old. One of the roads specifically referenced by Cannon was Chancellorville Drive.

Mayor Michelle Heiliger said that it has been a requirement of the city for some time that contractors have a construction entrance, which Cannon didn’t have for plat six. She said throughout most of the construction for plat six there were construction trucks moving over city streets that caused damage to those streets.

Cannon responded that he was never told they had to do that before.

“We have to get to a place where we are not spending tax dollars to continue to fix streets that developers are damaging to build new parts of their own development,” Heiliger said.

Cannon responded that no one knows if the damage to the streets is something that his company did during construction or natural deterioration on the streets. He said that when the city places chemicals on the streets and runs trash trucks over the streets it is causing deterioration. He said he was concerned about submitting a plat and then discovering from the city that there are a list of items to fix. He said he would have liked to receive that information before submitting the plat.

Heiliger said she believed his company was notified of necessary repairs ahead of time.

Alderman Don Andrews also challenged Cannon’s assertion that he didn’t have to do any repair work with respect to plat six, noting that Cannon did repair four slabs of concrete.

Cannon then said he would like to find a way to determine if the streets already had damage prior to his equipment using the roadways.

City Attorney Paul Rost said there is a process in place to determine what Cannon is requesting.

In response to a question from Heiliger regarding the status of the bill to approve the plat, Rost said that the city would need an agreement regarding the proposed 23 slabs that need to be repaired contingent on moving forward with approval of the plat. The 23 slabs were those identified by Public Works Director Kyle Roettger as those that needed to be repaired by Cannon.

Cannon said he was willing to do the repairs, but wanted to move forward with the plat as he has people interested in the homes to be built in the new portion of the development covered by plat seven.

Ultimately the board approved the plat, contingent upon repair of the 23 slabs identified by Roettger.