ACRP Legal Research Digest 10

34
towers in the airspace. It determined that the majority
of courts have held that “federal aviation law does not
preempt all local or state land use regulations which
may affect aviation.”
As a part of its inquiry in this case, the court examined
FAA’s statements regarding zoning for radio towers.
In a letter from the Airports District Office to the
county, FAA stated that the county
is obligated, through…federal grant agreements, to protect
the terminal airspace of the Rowan County Airport.
This is control that must be exercised at the local and/or
state level as the federal government does not have the
power to protect that airspace for you…. It is important
that local communities recognize these assets [airspace]
and provide the necessary protection both in terms of
land usages and height restrictions. 365
Because the federal government did not have this
power, the court found that federal law did not preempt
local zoning ordinances.
Federal law thus strongly supports a proprietor’s actions
to manage its own lands. It also can support an
airport proprietor’s rights when the proprietor defends
against some actions by nonproprietary entities that
might constrict the use of the airport. But the federal
government must rely on local proprietary rights to
protect aviation in the larger community. In general,
federal preemptive powers will not preempt local landuse
decisions that affect aviation when they do not impact
existing airport facilities.
The three overviews presented in this study illustrate
the scope of current proprietary rights analysis.
When proprietors address the local effects of flight, they
may face a variety of legal challenges and complex
processes. Airport rates and charges favor voluntary
agreements, but guidance on the reasonableness of a
proprietor’s actions remains in flux. Yet when proprietors
manage an airport campus, their actions are met
with substantial deference under a proprietary rights
analysis, and that analysis can help protect the airport
from nonproprietor actions. Federal law even relies on
proprietary rights to protect aviation interests more
generally in the community. These wide-ranging results
are the product of how different laws affect aviation and
nonaviation interests as proprietors exercise their stategranted
powers, to the extent not superseded by federal
law or modified by federal contract, and in light of the
proprietor’s longstanding purpose and function.
for those rights and have firmly established them in the
law. Thus the proprietor’s core state rights, to the extent
not superseded by federal law or modified by contract,
continue to support its role as a participant in the
aviation system.
V. CONCLUSION
The task of airport proprietors across the country
over the past century has been to establish aviation in
the community and to protect the legal framework that
makes that act possible. That framework was already in
existence at the outset of aviation in the traditional
municipal powers that airport proprietors held. Over
time federal law and contracts have shaped airport proprietary
rights, but they have also recognized the need
365
Id. at 911.