GA bills on University airport(s) - whose authority? whose power to take land?

First: As for how much of each bill I've been able to include here, in the other post on the Apodaca bill, I included 100% of what was available on the GA website, which one would assume is all of it.

For H2725, I did provide the link to the entire bill and made a point of saying it was long and complicated, and for a couple of critical passages, I did include actual wording. (Also pls. note that I did recognize that bills like these often do have "boilerplate" language, and asked for additional information from those more familiar with bill-writing.)

Re: Federal level involvement: That I've been able to discover, the FAA currently has no regulations or authority re: land use* around airports other than those applying to height of trees, towers, buildings, etc. at the ends of runways, and to noise abatement -- and whether noise abatement regs ever reflect a local component, I don't know.

RE: whether the FAA is likely to "swoop" in, its primary concern is understandably the safety of pilots, planes, and passengers. However, it's been obvserved more than once that the FAA has been dominated by friends of the industry, esp. in recent decades -- i.e., with little representation of municipalities, non-aviator voters, land interests, etc. In any case, the drafters of the NC GA bill included the provision for land appropriation clearly assuming that any such state-level commission has the requisite authority, without reference to Federal review.

The issue of land appropriation via assertion of eminent domain itself may seem boilerplate, but placed in the context of this bill paired with S1962 (Apodaca's) and the current controversy surrounding HWA, it has more than "boilerplate" significance. Which was my point in posting.

And in any case, if the FAA were in some way to have any role in applying eminent domain for land appropriation, it would almost certainly be to provide for adding to the amount of land taken, for safety reasons -- not reducing the amount of land claimed by a state-level airport authority.

(*anticipating some confusion: there are land-use guidelines, created by the Washington State DOT, governing building in an airport's vicinity and the liabilities incurred by doing so -- whose existence the FAA is aware of and whose existence also could and likely would figure into any lawsuits arising from an accident in an area of development near a working airport.)

Thanks very much for redirecting me. Apologies for not being aware of discussion among OC Commissioners - was out of town and away from papers.

Re: "this bill is involved with 'university purpose,' not so much with airports or aviation agencies" -- quantitatively, Part IV of this bill, the one devoted to creating and defining the airport authority/authorities, is the longest of the 5 parts, equaling in length the other 4 parts put together. Perhaps I miss Ed H's point.

The issue of level of authority is directly addressed: An authority created under this Article has all powers that a city or county has....

It then goes on: ... , and in regard to financing capital expenditures and operations shall have such powers as are delegated to or conferred upon the constituent institutions or the University of North Carolina Health Care System.

The reference to the FAA seems to be limited to ways of contracting for construction and maintenance.

(Interesting sidenote -- the section on eminent domain now includes quite a bit of discussion of what to do if the land appropriated includes a burial ground and timing/nature of notice to survivors. )

As a CH resident, I'm aware that the University has always had the power to assert eminent domain. What struck me here was that it could be conferred on a body that may include non-University members, which again may not be new but in the present context is at least worth noting.

Couldn't there be an analogy to a CN Commission to investigate additions/extensions to the HW tract, with membership that might include private developers while not including OC or town representation?

The Chapel Hill Herald reported Sunday that a citizens' group has been formed to challenge the airport authority's power to appropriate land.

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-980642.cfm (registration needed)

"Bonnie Hauser, a founding member of Concerned Citizens Against the Abuse of Eminent Domain, said the group represents more than a dozen 'interested families in the county' that are concerned about tax and land use ramifications associated with the General Assembly's decision to grant a university-created airport authority the power to condemn and acquire land. . . .

"[Hauser is quoted as saying] 'Frankly the whole process of the Airport Authority and how it's being put together appears to be an intentional fabrication to allow UNC to bypass zoning and land use ordinances without community input.'"

Front page today in the CH News: http://www.chapelhillnews.com/front/story/16450.html

"Roper, who is also the dean of the medical school, said Chancellor Holden Thorp had asked that the authority come under the Health Care System.

"I think it's a judgment call as to which of the two boards represents the interests of the airport [emphasis added, PCM]," Roper said. "We could have gone either way."

. . .

"We thought we were in a collaborative process," [Commissioner Barry] Jacobs said. "Some people at the university went ahead and pre-empted the entire process.

"By the time we found out we were already fighting a rear-guard action," he said.

"I'm not inclined to help in hosting an airport that is being relocated for an ill-defined expansion effort by UNC."

Please, Mark, you don't really mean to say that if the plans for the HW tract met with your approval, you would accept and even welcome actions by this particular authority to declare eminent domain wherever they choose?

It bears noting, once again, that 8 of the 15 members will appointed by Roper's group, the UNC Health Care System Board of Directors, and all for terms of 3 years. Five will be appointed by local authorities, appointed for staggered terms - 3 by OCC, one each from Carrboro and Chapel Hill. The remaining two will be appointed by the House and Senate, respectively. It doesn't take much imagination and math to figure out whose interests will be determining.

One more thing: history suggests that any local gov't attempts to preserve zoning authority over appropriated land will also be stymied.

Mark C. -- sorry, didn't mean to slight Hillsborough -- agree it's an odd configuration.

Mark M. -- a tall set of orders, each element a discussion in itself; but for the narrow issue of who gets the power to take land by eminent domain, that last one ("community treated with respect as a partner") seems already to have been pre-empted by how the new airport authority was established and how it will be constructed.

This morning's CHHerald reported on comments by Brad Broadwell, the economic development director for Orange County, at a meeting yesterday at the Friday center sponsored by the C-CH Chamber of Commerce:

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-992015.cfm

(Neil Offen also reported on this on WCHL in greater detail, but unfortunately, the link to WCHL only gets you a brief summary and a very short audio clip. My impression was that he implied considerable enthusiasm and a fair degree of certainty that the OC airport is going to happen; but without the full clip, I can't give you his exact words.)

From Dan Goldberg's CHH article: "The airport and ancillary industries that it could support are a largely untapped market in Orange, Broadwell said. Shipping, computers and other businesses that need immediate access to flights often locate near airports and highways, bringing other industry with them. He said any airport planning should include consideration of the available land area near the airport as well."

This sounds like the imposition of eminent domain for private economic development in the Connecticut case.