CAA: GA News, "Suit over California's Carmel Valley Airport dropped"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Friday, October 18, 2002

Suit over airport dropped
By KEVIN HOWE
The Monterey County (CA) Herald


A lawsuit challenging a Monterey County ordinance aimed at closing
Carmel Valley Airport has been dropped by the state Department of
Transportation.

The suit was filed by Caltrans after the county Board of Supervisors
adopted the ordinance last year, allowing the county to rescind permits
for privately owned airports operating as legal, nonconforming uses.

That ordinance set up a process that allows the county to determine that
the airport has run its course economically and its status as a legal,
nonconforming use could be terminated.

Caltrans said the supervisors had exceeded their authority, and that
airport uses fall under jurisdiction of the county Airport Land Use
Commission.

The Transportation Department's Division of Aeronautics also has an
interest in the operation of airports within the state.

But the announcement in April by owners Peter and Mary Delfino that they
wished to cease air operations at the valley airport and surrender their
operating certificate to Caltrans has made the ordinance moot.

A stipulation that the suit was being withdrawn "without prejudice" was
filed Wednesday in Superior Court, said Caltrans attorney Raiyn Bain.

That means it could be refiled if the county decides to apply the
ordinance to some other airport, said County Counsel Adrienne Grover.

She said Carmel Valley Airport was the only one operating in the county
as a legal, nonconforming use.

In May the Delfinos' son, Alan Delfino, took down the airport windsock,
painted out the runway numbers, and air operations there ceased.

The Board of Supervisors in May voted unanimously to protect the
Delfinos against any lawsuits arising from their decision to close the
facility.

The 29-acre airport site just north of Carmel Valley Village is zoned
for residential use under the Carmel Valley Master Plan, and the airport
has operated as a legal, nonconforming use that predated the plan.

Alan Delfino has put together a development package that proposes 75
senior housing units on the site.

The Carmel Valley element of the proposed revised and updated county
General Plan says development in the valley should be limited to one
unit per parcel, which would mean three houses on the airport property.

Carmel Valley Airport was built by real-estate developer Byington Ford
and opened Dec. 7, 1941. It was promptly closed when World War II
brought severe restrictions on private aviation, and it didn't reopen
until after the war.

The Delfinos bought the property in 1953, and it functioned as a casual
drop-in point for light planes until this year, and continues to be used
as an unofficial open space used by walkers, joggers, bicyclists and
equestrians.

Before the Delfinos can surrender their operating certificate to
Caltrans, a hearing must be held, Bain said.

Grover said the only issue to be considered at that hearing would be
whether state, federal or other public funds were used in the airport
operation and should be recovered.

No such funds were ever used at the Carmel Valley airport, she said.

No date for that hearing has been set, according to Caltrans.


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