Residents of Residential Airparks(?)

JOhnH said:
I'm looking at an airpark that has a rule that every homeowner must own an airplane and at least one person in the household must hold a valid medical cert. (I guess that includes basic med).
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I live on an airpark and totally agree with that in principle. But…when I hopefully age out of flying at hopefully some fairly distant point, that may change: first, will I be forced to sell if I lose my medical? Almost certainly not - but “aging out of flying” has converted probably 1/5 of our hangar homes - and several hangars - into either non-flying homes or rental (investment) properties.

Second, when I go to sell, I certainly prefer to sell to another pilot. But if some guy wants my hangar for his exotic car collection, will I turn away his bid that’s $100,000 over everyone else’s? I’ll be LEAVING - what’s it to me if one more hangar is turned into a big garage?

I guess my point is, those rules may be helpful but even with them there’s some level of “inefficiency” and some risk of loss of personal freedom with the sale. And the non-flyers around us are still great neighbors
 
JOhnH said:
I'm looking at an airpark that has a rule that every homeowner must own an airplane and at least one person in the household must hold a valid medical cert. (I guess that includes basic med).
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So no balloon, glider or sport pilots? :)

Seems rather unenforceable, and probably a violation of ADA if it were challenged.

The best way to keep a residential Airpark free of non-aviation types is to make sure non-aviation types wouldn't want to live there. IE, out in the boonies, not close to other amenities that might attract non-pilots.
 
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JOhnH said:
I'm looking at an airpark that has a rule that every homeowner must own an airplane and at least one person in the household must hold a valid medical cert. (I guess that includes basic med).
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So, sell your airplane to the insurance company or have something that requires a difficult SSI and you have to move?
 
Lots of aging neighbors in my neighborhood hung up flying years ago. They have every right to stay in their homes. They own them. These folks are valued in the community. We get no federal funding so you can keep your silly rules.
 
JOhnH said:
I'm looking at an airpark that has a rule that every homeowner must own an airplane and at least one person in the household must hold a valid medical cert. (I guess that includes basic med).
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Lots of ways that is effectively if not legally unenforceable.
 
I live near X05 and I grew up here..I always remember driving by there as a kid going to USF and wondering how much fun it would be to live there. Now years later I have flown in there for my check ride many times. I saw someone flying an extra and another working on his/her tailwheel in a cub. My dream one day is to hopefully retire in an airpark once the kids are grown. Of course, i'm a little behind the ball in that I am 47 soon to be 48 with a 33 yr old wife and a 4 and 10 yr old. My plan is to get at least one of my kids to fly so that they can take me around. Time will tell.. also i'm actually shocked at how low the HOA fees are for these airparks.
 
I'm on an airpark in AZ.
As others have said there are all types here, just as you'd find in any neighborhood.
It's really great to walk out the kitchen door to my 50 X 50 hangar 10 feet away.
 
bflynn said:
So, sell your airplane to the insurance company or have something that requires a difficult SSI and you have to move?
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No. I asked about that. Once you’re in, you’re in.
If the rule is going to reduce the price when you sell, then that reduction should be baked into your purchase price. but its a positive to me.
 
You can never tell. We've had several people buy who weren't aviation people who subsequently got into it because they lived here. The guy next door bought a derelict house in foreclosure and he and his wife fixed it up. He's the nicest guy in the world (if I'm doing anything outside that looks like I need a hand he's right here). He's just never going to be that into aviation. However, subsequently his two sons have bought properties on the airport. Both are now pilots. The daughter of one of them is an instructor and gone off to major in some aviation field in college.
 
Stewartb said:
Lots of aging neighbors in my neighborhood hung up flying years ago. They have every right to stay in their homes. They own them. These folks are valued in the community. We get no federal funding so you can keep your silly rules.
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I would be okay with those who hung up flying. I would not be okay with people who had never flown or didn't intend to. That's why we buy into a neighborhood that has the silly rules we agree with!

I knew of a small flying community where 5 guys wanted to live with their planes. A couple of the guys sold out to non-pilots. One guy was a pilot, but sold his plane. The final straw was when one guy decided to open a skydiving center, which none of the others liked. Eventually you had larger group of non-pilots than pilots and they voted to stop maintaining the runway, and ultimately they divided the runway up into 5 segments and closed it. Simple rules might have saved this place.
 
If it’s for sale and they buy it? It’s their choice. In my neighborhood they have to pay airport fees whether they fly or not. Works for me.
 
Stewartb said:
If it’s for sale and they buy it? It’s their choice. In my neighborhood they have to pay airport fees whether they fly or not. Works for me.
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The problem is that the non-aviators too often vote against things like runway improvement and maintenance.
 
The issue of non-aviators buying airpark properties is one that I hadn’t considered. Thanks for bringing that into the discussion.

RW
 
Non aviators screw up everything for aviators. El Toro Marine Corps base had a pretty disgusting thing happen to it as soon as city government and developers got their claws into it.

Similarly, the public story about places like Santa Monica is that adjacent homeowners didn’t want planes falling from the sky like Harrison Ford’s, and fuel would contaminate their little children’s brain. More specific scuttlebutt revolved around a dot com startup leasing “very cool hangar space” for $31M, which the city welcomed, all while funding and organizing the closure of the airport. Typhoon and the Hump / Mexican place shut down, the sitcom was happy (at the time), and no one has attempted to rescue the airport since.

Non aviators tend to be genuinely amoral and unethical towards aviation - and when I move into an air park, I’ll gladly and ferociously help protect its existence :)


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Is there a google translator that will work for that middle paragraph?
 
JOhnH said:
I'm looking at an airpark that has a rule that every homeowner must own an airplane and at least one person in the household must hold a valid medical cert. (I guess that includes basic med).
Click to expand...
If I were writing bylaws for an airpark from scratch, I would specify that one must be an active pilot or A&P in order to be elected to the board of directors. (A&Ps are handy to have at an airpark.)
 
You need a lot of land. The runway itself is going to be about ten acres (figure 2500x100 and some clear space). Plus you have to deal with whatever zoning they. might throw at you unless you're out in the middle of nowhere. We have the advantage that we really were in the middle of nowhere when the runway first went in, and it was a long time ago. I'd hate to see what I'd go through to build a new runway for any purpose in this county (other than the fact that the commissioners are inherently corrupt and bribable).
 
TDGlider said:
If I were writing bylaws for an airpark from scratch, I would specify that one must be an active pilot or A&P in order to be elected to the board of directors. (A&Ps are handy to have at an airpark.)
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I like the part about allowing A&Ps to own a house in the airpark, but I'm not to sure about requiring an ACTIVE pilot or A&P to be board members. Once an ACTIVE pilot or A&P moves in, they should be allowed all the privileges (and responsibilities) of everyone else, even after them become inactive. Its often hard enough to get anyone to take a position on the board. Retired folks have time and usually experinece.
 
Last year we had one non-aviation person on the board. She pretty much fell in line with a friend of hers (who was an aviation guy) on voting for things. We had 1 GA pilot, one retired airline pilot and A&P, 1 active airline pilot, and one flight instructor, in addition to here.

This year we have the wife of the retired airline pilot/A&P (who is a bigger go getter than her husband), me (just a instrument rated private pilot), the flight instructor, one active airline pilot and flight instructor, and the wife of another casual flyer like me. It's a good crowd. We did have one escapade where a board member sorta went rogue, but there's a procedure to vote those guys off.
 
flyingron said:
You need a lot of land. The runway itself is going to be about ten acres (figure 2500x100 and some clear space). Plus you have to deal with whatever zoning they. might throw at you unless you're out in the middle of nowhere. We have the advantage that we really were in the middle of nowhere when the runway first went in, and it was a long time ago. I'd hate to see what I'd go through to build a new runway for any purpose in this county (other than the fact that the commissioners are inherently corrupt and bribable).
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We’re 10 miles outside town, surrounded by cattle ranches. Just in the short five years I’ve been here, there’s been a change in the county building department. The old hands retired and were replaced by new hires who are totally by the book and treat remote properties the same as high-density urban.
 
Airpark homes seem to be hangar-partments or McMansions with a hangar. Yeah, I know Florida has more options, but no thanks.

Having no need for >1500 square feet, I'd rather put in a 1000' strip on acreage and build a small house and T-hangar than build on an airpark lot.
 
Personally...even though I'm an introverted person, the idea of a house on my own land with my own runway isn't very appealing. I feel part of the appeal is being around aviation...watching others takeoff and land, etc...

Brad Z said:
......
The best way to keep a residential Airpark free of non-aviation types is to make sure aviation types wouldn't want to live there. IE, out in the boonies, not close to other amenities that might attract non-pilots.
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Probably right about that in a pure sense..... but the issue I immediately see with that idea is that it rules out a lot of aviation minded folks too. I like planes but want to be reasonably close to things.... + for my non-aviation minded wife there would be absolutely nothing going for it so a place like that is out of the running for sure.... but I might be able to convince her some day, if the airpark was in a decent location AND had an active community of neighbors
 
Brad W said:
Personally...even though I'm an introverted person, the idea of a house on my own land with my own runway isn't very appealing. I feel part of the appeal is being around aviation...watching others takeoff and land, etc...



Probably right about that in a pure sense..... but the issue I immediately see with that idea is that it rules out a lot of aviation minded folks too. I like planes but want to be reasonably close to things.... + for my non-aviation minded wife there would be absolutely nothing going for it so a place like that is out of the running for sure.... but I might be able to convince her some day, if the airpark was in a decent location AND had an active community of neighbors
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Not just the airpark community itself but the surrounding areas as well, are they well built, good infrastructure, clean, good restaurants / grocery. That was the drawback when I looked at a couple places, they might be decent, but was overall too isolated. That and the community was mostly older people, probably most having about 30 years on me. Most airpark homes are custom builds and the taste / designs of the homes can be very basic or dated.

I did see some newer modern airpark homes in Arizona but no interest in the location. There’s also Alpine WY which is nice but also expensive, questionable HOA fees, and that’s a pretty isolated area with limited amenities. I have been in person and it’s pretty nice, and I like to see the constant new builds, maybe something will develop over time?
 
a lot of airparks are like that. It's increasingly not a lifestyle compatible with urban proximity.

There's also a lot of airparks in name only. Very little flying activity, largely a real estate money parking lot, and yes in my cursory observation it skews too geriatric for my taste. I know someone who lives on one here locally, moved both sets of geriatric in-laws (near-octogenarians) to the two neighboring lots. Way outsized housing footprint for a cohort of widowed empty nesters, not an airplane in sight among any of them. And the "hangars"? oof, pedestrian stuff storage galore. Basically HOA mcmansion living in a lot that would allow his de facto auto mod shop where no platted subdivision closer to town would otherwise allow. Half a million to live next to that? yeah, that's a hard pass for me thanks.

Non-airpark property and just drive to the airplane, continues to be the more practical avenue for me to fit my aircraft ownership lifestyle with the metro-proximate impositions of being married to a pedestrian, now and in retirement. It is what it is.
 
hindsight2020 said:
a lot of airparks are like that. It's increasingly not a lifestyle compatible with urban proximity.

There's also a lot of airparks in name only. Very little flying activity, largely a real estate money parking lot, and yes in my cursory observation it skews too geriatric for my taste. I know someone who lives on one here locally, moved both sets of geriatric in-laws (near-octogenarians) to the two neighboring lots. Way outsized housing footprint for a cohort of widowed empty nesters, not an airplane in sight among any of them. And the "hangars"? oof, pedestrian stuff storage galore. Basically HOA mcmansion living in a lot that would allow his de facto auto mod shop where no platted subdivision closer to town would otherwise allow. Half a million to live next to that? yeah, that's a hard pass for me thanks.

Non-airpark property and just drive to the airplane, continues to be the more practical avenue for me to fit my aircraft ownership lifestyle with the metro-proximate impositions of being married to a pedestrian, now and in retirement. It is what it is.
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I guess to get the kind of land needed for an airpark it must start from a rural area, if urban the land is too expensive, both areas there’s surely a Karen nearby to complain, HOA or not.

Some airparks are cheaper and the hangar itself worth almost the cost of the home/hangar/land if you consider the cost to build and/or buy a large box hangar at any airport given the limited supply of private ownership of hangars.
 
My neighborhood was built in the 70s. We’ve been left alone until someone decided they wanted to develop the land immediately adjacent to the airport. The new houses are inside the downwind for most aircraft, which means not a lot of overhead traffic, but close enough that departures can be loud. We fought it, but all we got was a “it’ll have a place for them to sign that they understand they are buying next to an airport” in their contracts that virtually nobody reads.
 
Salty said:
My neighborhood was built in the 70s. We’ve been left alone until someone decided they wanted to develop the land immediately adjacent to the airport. The new houses are inside the downwind for most aircraft, which means not a lot of overhead traffic, but close enough that departures can be loud. We fought it, but all we got was a “it’ll have a place for them to sign that they understand they are buying next to an airport” in their contracts that virtually nobody reads.
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Really annoying that people do not read contracts, I do read before I sign and often I’ll have clauses removed or edited. Cannot believe what people agree too, stupidity or laziness.

For the “buying next to an airport”, need additional clauses about noise, low flying aircraft (OMG the airplane has to fly low to take off and land), potential of off-airport landings, 100LL fuel (some Karen will say it’s poisoning the oxygen they breathe), etc.
 
If you buy a house on an airport, what happens when you hang up the spurs?

I wonder about the idea of just getting an airport condo that comes with a dedicated man cave hangar?
 
“If you buy a house on an airport, what happens when you hang up the spurs?“
After 50,000 hours my next door neighbor has Parkinson's and is in a wheelchair. He gets to watch all the planes and the airport holds the quarterly meetings in his hanger.
 
manac said:
“If you buy a house on an airport, what happens when you hang up the spurs?“
After 50,000 hours my next door neighbor has Parkinson's and is in a wheelchair. He gets to watch all the planes and the airport holds the quarterly meetings in his hanger.
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Hanger? Sorry. I couldn't resist.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Rules us light and sporty types out.
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I wouldn't want to do that. What would you suggest as an alternative to include light sport class pilots? The goal is to preserve the community for those with an interest in flying. Not people with an interest in a huge garage.
 
JOhnH said:
I wouldn't want to do that. What would you suggest as an alternative to include light sport class pilots? The goal is to preserve the community for those with an interest in flying. Not people with an interest in a huge garage.
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“Must possess a pilot certificate, meet FAA medical requirements to perform duties as pilot in command, and own or maintain primary possession and control of an aircraft which is airworthy/in a condition for safe operation.”
 
manac said:
“If you buy a house on an airport, what happens when you hang up the spurs?“
After 50,000 hours my next door neighbor has Parkinson's and is in a wheelchair. He gets to watch all the planes and the airport holds the quarterly meetings in his hanger.
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JOhnH said:
Hanger? Sorry. I couldn't resist.
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Well you need something to hang your spurs on ... :eek:
 
ateamer said:
“Must possess a pilot certificate, meet FAA medical requirements to perform duties as pilot in command, and own or maintain primary possession and control of an aircraft which is airworthy/in a condition for safe operation.”
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At time of purchase or what? Sounds like an attempt at a wannabe Ken (Karen’s husband).
 
mandm said:
At time of purchase or what? Sounds like an attempt at a wannabe Ken (Karen’s husband).
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My suggestion would be yes. Those things must be complied with at time of purchase. But if you lose your medical or are forced to sell your airplane, you shouldn't be forced to sell your house too. Those people are still "airplane people" with an interest in aviation. If they aren't, they will probably move on their own accord.
 
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