Home helipads may seem more at home in a movie than in Hall County, but the Hall County Board of Commissioners is considering adding regulations in the zoning code for private airfields.
Hall County Planning Director Randy Knighton said the commission asked to revisit the issue of private airfields after approving a zoning request for a helicopter landing pad this summer.
“We don’t see these often, but from time to time we do, and although it’s fairly rare, the commission wanted us to take a look at drafting an ordinance and considering some policy change,” Knighton said. “There was not any specific regulations in our current zoning code.”
In July, the commission allowed Dr. William Moscow, a Roswell eye doctor, to use his helicopter to fly to his vacation home at the intersection of Gaines Ferry Road and Sea Gals Road in South Hall and park it at a helipad on the property.
Knighton said that request for a private airfield was one of just three in recent memory.
“We had one about two years ago and then before that it was probably it was the late ’90s, as best I can tell that we considered one,” Knighton said.
Currently, private airfields are subject to county commission approval in areas zoned agricultural-residential. The Hall County Planning Commission will discuss a draft airfield ordinance Nov. 2 and it will go before the county commission for a public hearing Nov. 12.
The draft ordinance would serve “to provide some basic criteria to be submitted first as part of the application process and then there would be other criteria and regulations that would have to be maintained on the property if a request is approved,” Knighton said. “Part of it also is to ensure that there is some sense of consistency and also to provide some measures we think that would be able to provide protection to surrounding properties.”
Commissioner Ashley Bell said he thinks it is the responsibility of the commission to create policy where none exists.
“The commission was handling these on a case-by-case basis,” Bell said. “We didn’t have any regulations.”
Bell said though requests for private airfields are rare, he thinks it is important to have policy in place to guide future requests.
“The fact that we have authorized several in the county now, it’s apparent we need it,” Bell said. “That way next time someone comes in and wants to have a helicopter landing site on their property they can look to the code and know what we’ve already decided is policy that’s going to fit the growth and protect the neighborhoods of Hall County.”
The early draft of the ordinance for private airfields would require a minimum of 5 acres in a residential area and at least 3 acres of property in a nonresidential area.
Commissioner Billy Powell said he doesn’t think a new ordinance is necessary.
“We’ve only had two (private airfield requests) come before us in the five years that I’ve been on the commission,” Powell said. “I just don’t think we need to muddy the waters by creating another ordinance. I think we ought to just continue down the same road we’re on now and take each one on its own merit.”
Powell said there are too many factors that need to be considered for a private airfield application to have one policy that will fit all requests.
“Trying to guess and create regulations that say these conditions have to exist before we’ll approve it is unnecessary in my opinion,” Powell said.