Ok! All you folks now living on a residential airpark, interested in doing so or just want to make sure the right to have homes on airparks remains valid – please read the following carefully and send me your responses as soon as possible.

Brent Blue is an individual who has been aggressively fighting the FAA over the agency’s recent efforts to eliminate Through The Fence (TTF)
agreements.

He told me that “I met with the FAA today. They have been on a road trip to gather information on TTF airports and to hear from TTF hangar home owners to “possibly change policies.” They met in Erie CO, Independence OR, Sandpoint ID, and Driggs ID.”

Blue said he considers “most of their arguments against hangar homes theoretical or without valid foundation. They continually mentioned children and pets on airport operations areas, driving by unauthorized individuals on the runway (e.g. teenagers drag racing), and residential homes being built near airports because hangar homes are already there (e.g. you cannot fight off non aviation homes if you have aviation homes present).

“I think we are probably both in agreement that these are invalid arguments but as part of the process of supplying comment, I thought it would be good to give them numbers even if they were zero.”

Blue is seeking input from people on airparks relative to the issues the FAA has brought up. Please provide your personal experiences on the following issues so we can tabulate them and provide them to the FAA:

1. Are you aware of any accidents involving children or pets on taxiways or runways? If yes, please provide airpark name and city and approximate date.
2. Are you aware of any incidents of unauthorized use of the runway by autos, 4 wheelers, or other non aviation conveyance? If you are aware of such incidents, how was it dealt with by the homeowners.
3. Are you aware if zoning for single family dwellings used by the airpark encouraged any non aviation homes being built close enough to the airport to present noise issue?

“We know these numbers will be low, but given the large denominator of private airparks, we can use the results as an example of actual experience instead of theoretical risk. We will use these numbers to support our comments which we will be working on with the FAA in two weeks,” Blue concluded.

Can you help? Please send your comments right away to dave@generalaviationnews.com and I’ll tabulate them and get them to Blue.

Sun ‘n Fun (April 13-18, Lakeland, Florida) is coming up soon and I’m planning my residential airparks presentation. This is something I’ve been doing for a lot of years and I want to try something different this year.

Do you have questions about residential airparks? Are there things about possibly Living With Your Plane that you are particularly concerned about? Is your spouse questioning certain aspects of moving to a residential airpark?

I want to hear your questions and concerns or thoughts that you have so I can think about them in advance and attempt to come up with solutions. In addition, over the years, I’ve discovered that when a question is shared with the group sitting in on my program, someone usually can produce a good answer so I plan on sharing your questions with the audience.

Give me your thoughts as soon as you can. Contact me at dave@generalaviationnews.com. I look forward to seeing you all in Lakeland.

Question from Morris: I am inquiring about floor plans. I need to blow up the thumbnails to get a better view and also need the prices and what is included with the plans. Any help? Thanks.

Answer from Dave: The floor plans have been submitted over many years to Living With Your Plane by people all over the country. They are simply to provide you ideas for building… we do not have building plans so there is no charge from us. The name and address of the person who submitted the plans to us usually is on the layout and you might want to contact that person and see if they have and are willing to provide a set of plans. Hope this helps.

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.

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.

An email from Wayne Ristine wants to know: “Are there any lenders that understand lending or specialize in lending to purchase an airpark property.”

My response: I don’t know of any lender specializing in airpark properties, but there are firms that can help you. If you’ll share the general area you are looking at perhaps I can help you find a lender. Additionally, by pointing out the region you are looking at some lenders in that area as well as other airpark residents are very likely to come forward with additional information for you. If anyone has suggestions, please post them in the comments section below.

We received the following email regarding multiple airpark homes. My answer is below.

Mr. Sclair,

Could you please, help me with:

1. Do you think that Americans already living in a Fly-In Community could be interested, as a secondary home, to by one in Canada?
2. How popular is it to have a home in more than one Fly-In Community? Is that the exception?
3. How would you promote a new Fly-In Community?

Many thanks,

Isabelle

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Following is an email we received from Thom Barlow of Tampa, Florida:

Charlie Masters from Sandy’s Farm Airpark sandysairpark@sportys.com said to contact you.

I live on a modest little airport community 18 mi. north of Tampa FL. called Tampa North Aeropark (X 39). Before this Sub-Prime Mortgage Fiasco hit the fan the market value of my 4 bedroom 3 full-bath country-style hangar home was approximately $440,000. Now I can’t get an appraisal up over $250,000.00. It seems “they” do everything they can to purposely de-value my place. My loan officer told me Bank of America is holding so many foreclosure properties they have de-valued everything in the market so they can unload their inventory.

My biggest hurdle is the COMPS. The Appraisers don’t know how to appraise “Airport Community Homes”, They just don’t see the VALUE of living with your plane on a runway. They want to compare my place with a run-of-the-mill home in the area. More than likely sold real cheap & fast so the seller could get out from under a sub-prime mortgage and/or they lost their employment during this fiasco the Banks caused to the world economy.

My question to you is . . . Do you have knowledge of this happening elsewhere ? If so . . . What is being done to address it ?

Could you direct my path to Real Estate Appraisers that know what they’re doing ? I don’t care if they’re in other states. They might know useful stratigies and have connections that could help me here. This might be an area for your “Living with your Plane” to address at this time.

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Following is a question from Dale Whiting, and our response:

“What does ‘Through the Fence’ mean? My local GA field has imposed a fee on through the fence operations. I have always understood that ‘through the fence’ applied to operations taking an aircraft through a gate onto or off of the field. The local GA field appears to wish to impose fees on any business located off field which comes through any gate to do anything. Can you cite me to an authoritative FAA definition?”

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We received the following from Bob Aronson:

“We own a 7000 foot runway as part of a closed military base. Do you have any links to qualified firms that can advise on the feasibility of an airpark? Thanks!”

Dave responded with:

I would contact BCRA Design, a large, multi-faceted engineering, design, planning firm. Email: jbrown@bcradesign.com or call 253-627-4367. Good luck and keep us posted on how your project develops. You can also search our resources listings.