An airpark at Picton Airport in Koromike, New Zealand is in the permitting phase according to a story in The Marlborough Express. The story also notes:

“In this country, the Mackenzie District Council subdivided 33 sections on land next to Pukaki Airport in 2008, which returned more than $1.5 million.”

Have you bought or sold a home on an airpark within the last five years? If you did, the information about the transaction can be extremely important to many people out there wanting to do the same. In the economy of the last few years, factual information from those who actually completed deals are tremendously important. Please complete the following, very short survey so we can compile the real time data and make it available to the residential airpark community.

Jackson Hole Auction Company (866-486-7653)will hold a public auction of 18 fly-in hangar home sites in Afton, Wyo., on Saturday, May 15, according to William Burke, co-founder. “This is an absolute auction with no minimums and no reserves,” he said. “That means these properties will sell to the highest bidders.”

Located 60 miles south of Jackson Hole, Afton Municipal Airport’s (AFO) 7,023-f00t runway can accommodate most piston and turbine aircraft. Afton AirPark features dedicated taxiways, providing access to each of the 54 lots and hangars, and is serviced by Afton Flight Services FBO. Homeowners can arrange for fuel services directly to their homesite hangars. The property is unique in the fact there are no private hangars available at the Jackson Hole airport where tie down costs can run $250 to $750 per day, Burke said.

The auction, which will be at the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts at 240 S Glenwood Street, will be broadcast live on RFDTV starting at 2 p.m. on May 15 with telephone bidding available for pre-registered bidders.

An Australian airpark is the staging ground for a doctor who makes house calls. Great use of both General Aviation and in this case, a residential airpark. Read the complete story from the Fraser Coast Chronicle.

River Falls, outside of Amarillo, Texas, is an equestrian facility, but owner/developer Tully Currie wants to add a residential airpark next to a 6,000 foot runway. Read more at Amarillo.com.

Living With Your Plane reader Jens Torell sent us a note about… “a private airfield in Wichita, Kansas, going up for auction on June 3. It is well suited for an airpark development. Perhaps some of your readers would be interested.” See more auction data at McCurdy Auction and some additional background in a story from The Wichita Eagle.

For more than 30 years, I’ve tracked residential airparks and encouraged their development and encouraged the aviation community to support them.

Most flyin communities are private – owned and private – use but a significant number have been established over the years on property adjacent to public-owned and public-use airports. These residential airparks have provided financial support, security and even helped FBOs with their business.

Unfortunately, the FAA has taken a ridiculous stand against residential airparks at public-owned airports. The result has been threats to restrict grants for airport improvements and demands for repayment of past grants. The FAA has demanded that TTF (through the fence) agreements be canceled, causing property owners to suffer financial loss as they tried to sell a home. Read the full story

EAA hosted, last week, a working group of interested parties in an effort to preserve residential through-the-fence (TTF) on public airports. The efforts of this group are to push back against FAA Order 5190.6B “which contained a new key policy statement: “Under no circumstances is the FAA to support any “through-the-fence” agreement associated with residential use…”.” Read EAA’s  story here.

The Snohomish County (Washington) Council has voted 4-0 to preserve (or at least try to preserve) Frontier Airpark by requiring “a special notice for any new developments within 2,500 feet of airpark communities.” Read the full HeraldNet story here.

If only every news story started like this:

Snohomish County is looking at ways to preserve its lone residential airpark, a community where many people have personal airplane hangars and access to a private airstrip.

Read the rest of the story from the Everett (Washington) Herald.