West Side Board votes to build new mailhouse - Seven Lakes Times

NEWS July 8, 2011 Seven Lakes Times 3
Landowners challenge Aeromodelers’ permit
by Greg Hankins
Times Editor
“It ain’t over, ‘til it’s over,”
Yogi Berra said, and members
of the Seven Lakes Aeromodelers
Club can definitely testify
to the truth of that tautology.
The Club’s county-issued
permit to fly their planes in
a rural area near West End
is being appealed to Moore
County’s Board of Adjustment
by a Fayetteville attorney
representing the Raleigh owners
of an adjacent property.
The hearing, expected to
take place on Wednesday,
July 27, is the latest chapter
in a saga that began when
the two-dozen Aeromodelers
decided to look for a home
to call their own.
Looking for a home
The model airplane club,
which has been around for
more than 25 years, flew
their planes from the old
airstrip in Seven Lakes West
for a number of years, and
then moved their regular sessions
to a field near
Samarkand in the far western
end of the county, President
Bill Sherman of Pinewild told
The Times.
After researching a number
of possible locations, the club
last Fall leased 14 acres on
NC Highway 73 in West End
as an area for takeoffs and
landings, flying their planes
over an adjacent 60-acre hayfield.
Literally before the Aeromodelers
could get off the
ground at the new location,
adjacent property owners
Samuel A. Blackwell, III, and
Elizabeth Blackwell, of
Raleigh, filed a complaint
that brought the club and
its plan to the attention of
the Moore County Planning
Department. The Blackwells
purchased their property in
January of last year.
Realizing that the Moore
County Zoning Ordinance
had no provision for the flying
of model airplanes, the Planning
Staff asked the Planning
Board to consider an amendment
to the Zoning Ordinance
that would define flying model
airplanes as one among a
number of outdoor recreation
uses allowed in certain zoning
districts.
The idea of re-engineering
the ordinance to deal with a
complaint generated strenuous
objections from the
Blackwell’s attorney, Neil
Yarborough, of Fayetteville,
during an April 7 Planning
Board meeting. Board members
also questioned the wisdom
of trying to define, in
the Zoning Ordinance, every
possible type of outdoor recreation,
including the flying of
model airplanes.
After consultation with
County Attorney Misty
Leland, Planning Director
Joey Raczkowski advised the
Aeromodelers that what they
needed was not a re-write of
county ordinances, but simply
a zoning permit required
for the private, non-profit
club to meet on the West
End property. “Club (Private
Nonprofit)” is already a permitted
use in the RA-5 zoning
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district that applies to the
property.
Permit granted,
and appealed
The Aeromodelers filed their
application and obtained the
zoning permit, including the
right to erect a small shelter
on the property. Yarborough,
on behalf of his clients, has
appealed that permit, Planning
Director Raczkowski’s
interpretation of the zoning
and land use ordinances,
and his decision not to pursue
the zoning violation
alleged in the original complaint.
The task of adjudicating
the appeal will fall to
the County’s Board of Adjustment,
a five member committee
(with two alternates)
appointed by the Board of
Commissioners.
Raczkowski told The Times
that any decision he makes
in his role as Zoning Administrator
can be appealed to
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the Board of Adjustment.
The hearing of that appeal
is a quasi-judicial process;
witnesses will give testimony
under oath, and the Board
will rule on the merits of the
case.
Any appeal beyond the
Board of Adjustment would
go first to Superior Court,
and then work its way up
the appellate levels of the NC
Courts system, Raczkowski
explained.
But any hearing before the
court would be focused more
on whether due process was
followed than on the merits
of the complaint. The Planning
Director said, in his fifteen
years serving in that
capacity in North Carolina,
he has had only one decision
appealed to Superior Court.
Still flying
Meanwhile the Aeromodelers
are in a bit of legal
limbo. The construction of a
shelter on the West End property
is on hold, President
Sherman told The Times. But
they are still flying their
planes on Wednesday and
Friday mornings, from 9:00
am to Noon. For now, those
are the only days the Club
flies, though Sherman told
The Times they’d like to be
able to fly every day of the
week, though restricting
weekend flights to nearly
silent electric planes.
Sherman said about 30
percent of the planes the
group flies are electrics; the
remainder use glow engines,
which he said were much
(See “Aeromodelers,” p. 26)
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