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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.