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Public
hearing set on airport overlay |
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November 23, 2011 |
Boundary County commissioners will hold public
hearing at 10 a.m. Tuesday, December 20, to
accept public comment on establishing an airport
overlay zone proposed by the Boundary County
Airport Board that will require airport approval
before development permits can be submitted to
planning and zoning on properties surrounding
the airport.
 The proposal is needed, Airport Board members
say, so as to protect an important local
economic engine and to assure that grants
afforded by the Federal Aviation Administration,
which have made possible vast improvements to
the airport's infrastructure over the past
several years, remain available.
Next week, notices will be mailed to all
property owners within the most restrictive
zone, a rectangle centered on the airport runway
extending from inside Bonners Ferry city limits
on the south to a point extending nearly to
Oxford Road on the north, in which any land use
application submitted to county planning and
zoning will have to be signed by an authorized
airport staffer to be accepted.
The airport board is encouraging the City of
Bonners Ferry to establish the same requirement
for a handful of city properties located within
the zone.
In addition, property owners up to 2.65 miles
away who proposed structures taller than
150-feet in height above ground surface will
also require to get authorized airport approval
before a development application can be accepted
by Planning and Zoning for processing.
"It will add an additional requirement on about
100 property owners who have land within the
rectangular zone right around the airport who
want to build," said zoning administrator Mike
Weland, "but except in extreme cases I don't
anticipate the requirement to cause too much of
a burden. Under the new zoning ordinance adopted
this month, the days of walking in, making
application to build a house and walking out
with a permit are over, as a ten-day waiting
period has been imposed to allow input from the
various county departments. The airport overlay
zone will ensure that airport staff has a chance
to look at the applications within that zone
before they're accepted so as to ensure that
nothing built around the airport will interfere
with FAA requirements or impede the airport's
ability to accommodate air traffic."
In 12 years on the job, Weland said, there've
been some close calls concerning building height
encroaching into the airport overlay, but none
that have hurt the airport in its ability to
comply with the FAA.
"Trees have been more of a problem than
buildings," Weland said, "as we don't have many
skyscrapers here. But with the growing need for
towers, there is a potential that problems could
arise, and this ordinance, if passed, will
ensure that such problems are avoided and that
our airport can continue to grow and improve."
Airport staff was actively involved in the
process of developing the new zoning ordinance,
and much of the land within and around the
tightest proposed airport zone was re-classified
as commercial/light industrial to deter
residential development and to prevent the
establishment of places where people might
gather on a regular basis, such as churches and
schools. Places where, in an aviation emergency,
an aircraft ceding the laws of aeronautics and
giving in to the laws of gravity might better be
a plane wreck rather than a civil disaster.
The planning and zoning ordinance, however,
requires that the Airport Board adopt and
administer the specifics of its own overlay
ordiance, as only a trained aviator can truly
understand the arcane language of aviation and
why it's important.
"Under our old ordinance, I was tasked with
trying to understand glide paths, approach zones
and all the other terminology that pilots know
as a matter of course so as to administer
something I knew nothing about," Weland said.
"As an Army brat, I grew up in airplanes and
jets crossing the ocean and the nation. As a
paratrooper, I jumped out of airplanes and other
aircraft. As a reporter, Don Jordan once handed
me the controls of his airplane and nearly
scared me to death, telling me to keep the
flight level and line up for approach. I kept
the plane in the air,amazed that I was actually
flying the plane, Don, thank goodness, took over
and flew the plane in.
As a former paratrooper, it still scares me to
nearly the point of paralysis to land in an
airplane, be it a jet airliner or a small craft.
Don landed me safely, but I'm sure I severely
cripple his armrest.
I think the public, both those flying and those
on the ground, would much prefer if I, or those
people who will one day occupy the P&Z
administrator's chair, let the people who know
what they're talking about and doing administer
the airport overlay.
I did buy a video game hoping I could learn more
about flight. Nine times out of ten, I crashed.
Fortunately for most citizens living adjacent to
those properties in the flight path, I never
made it off the airport runway.
I have no doubt that Dave Parker and the airport
board agree unanimously that the public will be
better served by experienced aviators, and, as
the grounded zoning administrator, I have no
doubt that the airport is an essential part of
our communities economy. |
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