Question from Dave Hamann: Been following through the fence issue. For now this does not appear to apply to privately owned, public access airports. Mid Valley Airpark (E98), NM has been open to public for 40 years. However, should we in any way shape or form accept state money, I can see we may get in a bind.

Answer from Dave Sclair: You are correct in your assumption that private-owned, public-use airports don’t seem to be affected. Accepting a state grant for improvements might not be a problem either, although before getting into such an agreement it would be highly intelligent to have the agreements checked out for attachments to the FAA.

By Brent Blue, ThroughTheFence.org

The FAA has consistently justified most of their opposition to “through the fence” residential hangars as being related to noise complaints. They have frequently stated that the FAA has spent $1.8 billion to buy land to mitigate noise sensitive neighbors. However, the FAA has never delineated residential hangars from residences which have no airport connection.

In order to find out exactly how much of a problem noise has been for the FAA from hangar home residents, ThroughTheFence.org asked to FAA, through the Freedom of Information Act, for two items related to noise.
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The following question came from Fred Herzner:

“Can you recommend an attorney to help us form an Airport HOA in the Knoxville, TN area?”

Answer: I suggest you contact some of the condo units in your area or housing developments with HOAs and ask about the attorney they have used. Any attorney who has prepared a HOA for a condo association or residential subdivision should be able to help you.

If anyone has a personal recommendation or other advise, please post it below.

The AOPA, in a letter dated December 18, has asked the FAA for more flexibility in its “proposed ‘one size fits all’ approach to airparks and other residential through-the-fence (TTF) operations at public-use airports”. A story posted to AOPA Online notes:

“The new FAA guidance acknowledges no acceptable residential TTF agreements, a statement that AOPA considers a significant departure from the agency’s past policy.”

We received the following email from a Living With Your Plane reader today. Please post your feedback in the comment area below the letter.

I am looking for experiences and suggestions pertaining to residential airparks where a developer or individual owns the underlying land of the runway(s), taxiways, roads and other common areas. In my particular instance, the primary Home Owners Association (HOA) is chartered with maintaining these areas and has collectively paid for paving the runway, adding runway lights, grading and fill of graveled areas, etc. Attorneys have told the HOA that they are responsible for safety by this action of maintaining the runway and common areas, and less-so the underlying land owner.

Our underlying land owner is a resident pilot and dues-paying HOA member. However he is reluctant to relinquish his overall control. This has already caused conflicts where residents feel his actions on his land adjacent to the runway (declared right-of-way and easement) create an unsafe aviation condition, but are powerless to change it. The HOA is never consulted beforehand either. In addition, our small airpark with about 25 owners has three separate HOA/covenant boundaries which were determined when each area was sold. The irrigation and trash users are also separate entities. Read the full story

Following is a press release from Brent Blue, founder of ThoughTheFence.org. In our opinion, Dr. Blue has done an outstanding job of pursuing the through-the-fence issue to the benefit of ALL property owners, but especially those who currently enjoy the benefits of a legal, and binding, through-the-fence agreement.

The FAA’s new Airport Compliance Manual (ACM) adversely affects every federally funded airport by its new mandate telling local airports how to deal with their neighbors. The new policy forbids local airport authorities from entering into new “through-the-fence” (TTF) agreements with neighboring land owners and requires non-renewal of current agreements at the end of the contract term. The rule, which replaces “discourage” with “prohibit”, affects thousands of businesses, pilots, aircraft hangars, and hangar homes connected by gated taxiways to airport property.

The FAA, responding this week to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, could not provide any data to support new prohibitions on TTF agreements. The new prohibitions were announced in the ACM 5190.6B unveiled September 30, 2009, which was prepared without any public input or comment.
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John McArdle, mayor of City of Independence (Oregon) and Gregg Del Ponte, the acting director of the Oregon Department of Aviation have both gone on the record in favor the through-the-fence agreement at Independence Airport. A story at StatesmanJournal.com turns the spotlight on the FAAs efforts and actions to do away with through-the-fence agreements at federally funded airports.

As we’ve discussed before on this site, the FAA is taking a position against through-the-fence airparks at federally obligated airports. The FAA has issued a memorandum relating to “Compliance Guidance Letter (CGL) 2009-1-Through-the-Fence and On-Airport Residential Access To Federally Obligated Airports”. Our opposition to the CGL and memorandum are based on a number of points. We have submitted the following statement of our opposition to the FAA proposal. Read the full story

The Experimental Aircraft Association is asking members (read story) “who have real-world experience in through-the-fence operations” to log into its Oshkosh365 social media website to provide “feedback and constructive comments” that will help craft EAAs official response to the FAA.

An email from Tom Hall sheds light on a Tennessee airport with a through-the-fence issue:

Although widely publicized, I do not see our airport listed. Scott County Airport (Oneida, TN) is currently “in informal non-compliance” with FAA land use. All funds have been with held. This is in retaliation for granting TTF access to the Big SouthFork Airpark.
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