Quote:
Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist
|
The legal dynamics of aviation obstacle regulation are fairly complex and involve all levels of government from federal to local. The FAA is not technically involved in the approval or permitting of any structure, that falls under jurisdiction of the local municipality (in this case the City of SD). However the FAA defines the FAR Part 77 "imaginary surfaces", a roughly conical region centered above the airport, which define what it considers ideal for safe aircraft operations.
The FAA does not have any direct methods to enforce compliance upon developers, but since the FAA
is allowed to decertify an airport for air travel state and local governments are heavily incentivized to refuse permitting of structures violating these boundaries, at least if they want to keep their airport from being shut down.
The FAA even has even already written up a law for cities to pass just to make that easier for them.
The Part 77 surfaces define what the FAA considers necessary for safe aircraft operations, but they're not exactly going to complain if your local municipality wants to be more restrictive than that. To that end when CA passed the California Aeronautics Act it required the Caltrans Div of Aeronautics to give approval to any structure taller than 500' AGL within 1.5 miles of an airport, which it never has and probably never will. This is why One America Plaza tops out at exactly 500 feet. However, portions of the East Village are further than 1.5 miles away from Lindburgh and the Part 77 FAA surfaces after taller than 500 feet in the area. But because the City of SD has decided that would just look silly the Centre City PDO limits building heights to 500 feel above sea level across all of downtown. Although the City Council can overrule this and has done so in the past, unless your project is going to be iconic as One America Plaza (or the Seaport Village observation tower hopefully!) they're probably going to say no.
Prev
Linear Mode
