Some of you say that the landowner has a perfect right to do what he wants
with "his" land. This is obviously not true, because he has to have
planning permission, which can presumably be refused.

As to whether a landowner or anyone else ought to need planning permission
to do what they want with their own land, this is a large political
question, and in most countries there are in fact restrictions. You cannot
legally do whatever you like, and permission has to be obtained. This is
because what you do with your own land affects your neighbours and others.
Many gliding clubs are restricted in what they can do on their own airfield
for exactly these reasons.

There have been many cases of people buying houses near to an existing
airfield, and then complaining about the noise.

On the other hand, if someone buys a large block of land next to your own
house, or next to your own gliding club, and then wants to build an airport;
are you saying that you should not be able to have any say as to whether it
is built?

As to Omarama, I have unfortunately never been to New Zealand. However I
have spoken with people who have extensive experience of gliding at Omarama
and I am told that in some conditions there is not much clearance when
launching over the area where development is proposed. Is this correct?

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove "ic" to reply.


"Bruce Hoult" wrote in message
...


In article ,
"David Starer" wrote:

In the UK it is possible to give an airfield protected status. Once
this is done, local planners cannot give permission for any development
in the surrounding area that would have an operational or safety impact
on the airfield. This gives the airfield operator protection against
the sudden appearance of tall buildings, masts, chimneys, etc. Owners
of surrounding property cannot grow tall trees or even put fences up
against the airfield boundary if this would cause a hazard to the
operation. Maybe something similar exists in NZ?


I don't know, but I would hope not. The guy has a perfect right to do
what he wants with *his* land. It is, after all, his, not ours.

The runway at Omarama is a pretty good length at 1380m (just over
4500 ft).

That's several times longer than many aerotow operations have available,
and is even long enough to get a decent height winching (and there is a
winch there).

It's comparable to or longer than the commercial runways at Blenheim,
Gisborne, Hastings, Hokitika, Kaitaia, Kerikeri, Masterton, Milford
Sound, Napier, Nelson, New Plymouth, Paraparaumu, Rotorua, Taupo,
Tauranga, Timaru, Wanganui, Whakatane, or Whangarei. It's longer than
Queenstown was until they decided they not only wanted to have 737s
flying locally but to also fly them fully loaded to Australia.

So you're going to have a pretty tough time arguing that putting up some
houses off the end of the runway is going to have a significant effect
on *safety*.

So the only real danger I can see is that people buy houses there and a
few years down the track start complaining about the noise. Which is
totally illogical, but it happens.

So why aren't we concentrating on *that*?

Don't try to tell the guy he can't subdivide his land. That will cost
him $$$ and so of course he won't like it much. Just ask him to get the
buyers to sign a covenant that they know there is an airport there and
they know there will be some noise. That's not going to cost him any $
at all, so it's hard to see why he wouldn't agree if approached nicely.

Bruce.