Posted on 12 August 2008
Dave Sclair, publisher of Living With Your Plane, regularly addresses problems affecting residential airparks. Many of the questions he addresses come up during his presentations at various aviation events around the country.
Question: The runway in our fly-in community isn’t a separate legal entity or tax parcel. The lots on either side of the runway go to the center of the runway and each lot owner’s deed provides an easement across their private property for the runway. This means there’s no separate tax for the runway itself since each property owner pays their tax bill which includes an equal share of the runway.
Recently we’ve been looking into obtaining liability insurance for our airpark and the question has come up about how we insure this. Is this a common practice? Have others had problems with this format? Can insurance be obtained for the runway only to be paid for by the various property owners?
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Posted on 25 July 2008
With the nationwide housing market in turmoil, we are trying to determine what effect it is having on the residential airpark market. This survey will provide updated and useful information for both buyers and sellers. It might even be helpful determining the ultimate value of your property for real estate tax purposes.
Posted on 15 July 2008
Question: Since many (most) airparks are property owner’s associations of some kind or another, and since these associations charge money as dues, and since these dues are used by officers of the association to manage the business of the associations - how often are/should the books of the association be audited?
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Posted on 14 July 2008
Question: We’re having a disagreement about liability insurance for our fly-in community. Some of our property owners want as high a liability policy as we can get. Another group says a minimum about is adequate and the third group says we shouldn’t have any liability insurance for the airpark; each homeowner should just carry his own. What’s the best answer?
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Posted on 01 July 2008
Q: My wife and I have looked at several airparks. It’s difficult to know where to begin, and what to look for in an airpark. Perhaps you could do an article on what a first time buyer should look for in an airpark. Does size matter? What about the runway? Does having direct access to the runway mean you have a prime location? What about the houses, does a ranch style house work better with an attached hanger? Is it better for the airpark to be located far out in the boondocks, or is it better to be close to the city?
Perhaps you could visit different airparks in the country and give detailed information about each one. Describe some of the residents and what they think of living in an airpark and get advice from them such as what would you tell a prospective new resident. I’m looking forward to reading the new articles about airparks.
Kenneth & Deborah Houston
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Posted on 17 June 2008
Question: How much is reasonable annual dues or assessment for airpark residents and for what should the funds be used?
Gary Hamilton
Sunrise Skypark, Idaho
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Posted on 05 June 2008
A reader comments:
I read with great interest your article on homeowner dues in airparks. I live on an airpark, and I have a question about dues paid by commercial enterprises on the airpark.
In our case, the owner of a commercial - residential lot on the airpark resides on the lot, and he operates an aircraft maintenance business on the lot.
Do other airparks charge different homeowner dues for businesses located on the airstrip? A business creates more wear and tear on the airpark facilities and a business has the most to gain by having a well-maintained airpark. Our business owner is charged the same dues as all of the strictly residential property owners in the airpark.
I am curious to know how other airparks handle this situation.
Post your thoughts below.
Posted on 03 June 2008
Question - My wife and I are in our early 60s and we’re interested in converting our farm strip into a residential airpark. We’re located about 25-30 miles from a city of about 100,000. How many lots should be expect to develop in the project and from whom do we have to get permission?
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Posted on 06 May 2008
Many of you interested in living on a residential airpark and even some of you who have already bought on a fly-in community have questions. These issues are extremely varied but all are important.
While not everyone is interested in every question raised all issues are of interest to some folks. As I speak at various functions around the country, I hear about the issues and try to answer them at the time.
Recently I started printing these questions in General Aviation News together with my response. I plan to provide these question and answer articles on this blog now as a means of spreading the information further. And, of course, I’m also hoping you will join in the general discussion from your personal perspective.
Here’s the first of the articles:
Question: One of our airpark property owners has his property for sale and the lookers aren’t particularly airplane people, from what I’ve learned. Is this going to be a problem and if so, what do we do about it?
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Posted on 10 March 2008
Here’s the second installment of results from the recent Living With Your Plane survey of subscribers informing us how much their airpark is affected by different problems that have cropped up around the country.
As we noted in our first piece, the responses came from 53 individuals representing 23 different states. Even better, none of the respondents came from the same fly-in community so that means we received a broad response.
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