Flying Site Case Study #19
Following are portions of an article that appeared in the Everett (WA) Herald, written by Herald staff writer Kathy Korengel.
"Marysville-Dave Sweetwood, an Everett attorney, learned to fly model airplanes at his father's side. He'd like to pass the tradition on to his grandson. That may have become a little easier because of a recent county planning decision.
The Evergreen Radio Modelers Association, to which Sweetwood belongs, just received a permit to fly members' Radio Control (RC) airplanes over a field at 6832 112th St. NE., north of Marysville. The permit, which has been two years in coming, brings to a close for now a squabble between the fliers and their neighbors that has included damaged roofs, shot down model airplanes, and frayed nerves.
The club, whose members fly airplanes with three- to seven-foot wingspans, is the first in Snohomish County to be granted such a permit. The permit includes 15 special conditions designed to appease neighbors, delineating everything from the pitch of the airplanes' engine noise to a 100-foot buffer zone around the fliers' field.
'We hope these rules and regulations keep our neighbors happy and give them someone in the club to contact if there's a problem, ' Sweetwood said. 'We' re trying to be good neighbors. '
Jake Neff, a farmer who worries about airplane debris hurting the cows on his nearby dairy farm, is not wild about his neighbors' hobby but has resigned himself to the decision. Neff, whose farmhand once shot down a model airplane in frustration several years ago, still questions allowing the activity in his neighborhood.
'I don 't feel those little, buzzing airplanes are necessarily something a farmer, or animals that are a little apprehensive of the things, should be involved within an agricultural zone,' Neff said.
Sweetwood, who represented small airplane enthusiasts in their permit application, said the club first convinced the county to adopt legislation allowing such clubs in agricultural lands in 1997, legitimizing what the club had been doing for years. The club has been flying on the 24-acre, leased field since 1988.
The club applied for a permit from the county in June 1998. It received one a year later, but the permit was rescinded after Gerald Ross, an annoyed neighbor, filed an appeal in July 1999.
The permit was pulled because of a 'clerical error' in its language, said Scott White, an agricultural planner with Snohomish County Planning and Development Services. 'Since it hadn't gone very smoothly the first time, I contacted neighbors to find out what was going on,' White said.
He sorted through about 25 letters from neighbors and brought everyone together for a public meeting in April. He then sent a letter to all who had attended outlining his plan. 'Then and only then did I issue a permit,' White said, and since then he hasn't heard a complaint.
Several conditions of the permit address neighbors' concerns about property damage, including posting a contact number for neighbors and requiring the club members to carry insurance to cover such incidents. The permit will be up for renewal in five years.
Club members said they clean up any accidents and sometimes problems are caused by nonmembers who use the field. Bruce ' Doc' Lamus, a retired Everett physician who flies at the field five mornings a week, sees the permit as a positive thing. 'For the foreseeable future we'll have a place to' fly ,' Lamus said, adding that all over the country clubs are struggling to keep airfields as they get squeezed out by encroaching development."
Update: Don indicated that the club had met with the neighbors within the last 18 months and that further concerns were expressed and addressed. The club promised to restrict model engines to those capable of less than 30,000 rpm.
Additionally, whenever a member is flying, he or she is required to hoist a brightly colored flag, visible to the distant neighbors. The idea here is that if flying is going on and the flag isn't up, neighbors can get local law enforcement to deal with the nonmember trespassers.
There's a lot to learn from the experiences of the Evergreen Modelers. Rather than the flailing of arms and the hurling of epithets, these folks dealt with the local government and the concerned neighbors in a professional, noncombative way. Concerns by the neighbors were accepted and dealt with.
Crucial to the success here is the fact that the local planning staff was willing to act as the mediator, and called for a public meeting. Crucial also was the fact that a very qualified club member was willing to spearhead the effort for the club.