"Homeowners sue Chesapeake, Va., airport authority over flight paths"

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Homeowners sue Chesapeake, Va., airport authority over flight paths
The Norfolk (VA) Virginian-Pilot


CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- A group of homeowners sued the Chesapeake Airport
Authority on Tuesday, alleging that the city's small regional airport
has violated their property rights by routing planes over their homes. 

The residents are seeking financial compensation. 

"It's a taking of their property; it's damage to their property," said
Joseph T. Waldo, a Norfolk-based attorney who filed nine lawsuits in
Chesapeake Circuit Court on behalf of 17 residents in West Landing
Estates, a roughly 30-home subdivision built on farmland in the early
1990s. The subdivision is about a mile and a half southwest of the
airport, directly in the approach to the airfield's sole runway. 

Chesapeake Regional Airport, open since the mid-1970s, sits on about 400
acres on West Road, just east of U.S. 17 in the southern part of the
city. The Chesapeake Airport Authority is a nine-member board appointed
by the City Council to oversee the airfield. 

As the airport has evolved from a rustic airstrip into a fledgling
suburban airfield that can accommodate corporate jets and military
helicopters, some nearby residents say they've been duped. 

Steve Haynes, who is among the plaintiffs, said he's fed up with planes
flying over his home, sometimes as low as 300 feet, as well as with what
he claims has been brusque treatment by airport and other city officials
who haven't taken his concerns seriously. 

"We want them to change the approach," said Haynes, who retired from the
Navy after 27 years, including stints on carriers. "I don't think
there's any other way to fix it." 

Airport Authority Chairman Thomas E. Love said Tuesday that he had not
seen the lawsuits and could not comment on the case. He added that "the
authority is obviously concerned about our neighbors." 

On June 23, a handful of top airport and city officials, including
then-Mayor-elect Dalton S. Edge, Love and Airport Manager Joseph E. Love
met for two-and-a-half hours with a group of West Landing Estates
residents to hear their grievances. Thomas E. Love and Joseph E. Love
are not related. 

The airport manager said Tuesday that the subdivision had been
identified as a noise-sensitive area and that pilots have been asked to
avoid flying over it whenever possible. 

Edge, however, made it clear at the June meeting that shutting down the
airport was not on the table. 

"We're not closing the airport," he said. 

Haynes and other West Landing Estates residents who attended the June
meeting said they knew there was an airfield nearby when they built or
bought their homes, but that the airport has slowly grown into a much
busier, noisier neighbor than they ever bargained for. 

City officials have pointed out that the airport was there first. 

Waldo said the we-were-there-first argument won't fly. 

"It's kind of the red-herring," he said. "The courts have routinely said
it's not about the airport; it's about the airplanes that fly over the
homes." 

The lawsuits essentially argue that the airport authority has taken an
easement through the airspace over the homeowners' property without
paying for it. 

Just as property owners would expect compensation from the government if
a road in front of their homes were widened, those in West Landing
Estates affected by increasing air traffic at the city's growing airport
are also entitled to compensation, Waldo said. 

The lawsuits state that the airport authority "has compensated other
owners in or near the flight path for avigation easements it has taken,"
but that it has refused to compensate those in the nearby subdivision. 

The homeowners' suits do not seek damages at this point, but rather the
appointment of a condemnation commission to determine just compensation.


City real-estate records show that the assessed value of all 30
properties in West Landing Estates increased this year by an average of
16 percent. One property, for example, sold in March for $468,000. Last
year, it was assessed at $292,400. As of July 1, its assessed value rose
to $340,400. 

Waldo, however, said the assessments are generated by the city. 

"Tax assessments have nothing to do with appraisals for damage
purposes," he said. "The market is determined by an informed buyer, with
full disclosure." 

In 2001, nine residents of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake sued the Navy,
alleging that their property values had been lowered because of noise
from Navy F/A-18 Hornets operating near Oceana Naval Air Station and
Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Fentress. 

The lawsuits, later expanded to include about 2,000 homeowners, are
still pending.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************