Consulting Engineer Opposes City Annexation of Property for Residential Development Near Airport

November 19, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

Should the City of Smithville annex property on Parkway Drive near the airport for future residential development?

CHA Consulting, Incorporated of Louisville, Tennessee doesn’t think so. CHA is the city’s consulting engineer and in a recent letter to Mayor Josh Miller, Lawson S. Bordley of CHA advised the city to guard against taking any action that might interfere with the airport’s Runway Protection Zone (RPZ) or hamper future extension of the airport runway.

“With regards to your airport, in my opinion, the proposed subdivision off the end of Runway 24 is not in the airport’s best interest,” wrote Bordley. “ My recommendation is to do everything you can to make sure you do not impede the growth of the airport,” he added.

Larry Hasty wants the city to annex his property which is surrounded by Parkway Drive, Allen Street, Shady Drive and 2nd Street so that he can develop a 40 lot residential subdivision there. The mayor and aldermen have scheduled a public hearing on the proposal for Monday, December 6 at 5:30 p.m. at city hall. Neighbors have already expressed opposition to the annexation request as well as a condition that the county transfer to the city ownership of a portion of the roads surrounding this property if the annexation is to be approved.

Katelyn Sanders, Manager of the Smithville Municipal Airport, told WJLE Thursday that she agrees with the consulting engineers recommendation. “What a lot of people don’t know is at the end of our runway there is an area called the Runway Protection Zone (RPZ). As a part of that Runway Protection Zone it’s a trapezoidal area that is marked off at the end of both of our runways. We have our Runway 06 and our Runway 24. The end we are talking about here is our Runway 24 end,” said Sanders. “This area is marked off for the safety of pilots and people on the ground. The city closed a park in that area two years ago for that specific reason because we were afraid of the safety of little kids playing soccer or families there. Although aircraft incidents there are very rare they do happen and when they do they are very fatal. This development they are proposing for the end of this runway would defeat the purpose of the safety of the residents of the city. That is our main concern. We don’t want anyone to worry about an aircraft coming too close to their house or pilots worried if there is an emergency and they are running low on fuel which happened a few weeks ago so its not a rare incident. It does happen. We always want to make sure we are thinking about the safety of the people and pilots first,” said Sanders.

It remains to be seen whether these new concerns raised by the consulting engineer along with the public complaints will impact the aldermen’s final decision on the proposed annexation . Action may come following the public hearing at city hall Monday night, December 6. The public hearing is at 5:30 p.m. followed by the regular monthly meeting of the mayor and aldermen at 6 p.m.

CHA’s letter by Bordley to Mayor Miller reads as follows:

“With regards to your airport, in my opinion, the proposed subdivision off the end of Runway 24 is not in the airport’s best interest”.

“An airport’s Runway Protection Zone (RPZ) is a trapezoidal area found off the ends of all runways. An RPZ’s dimensions are determined from the largest aircraft that typically use your airfield and is to be kept clear of all development. The RPZ’s purpose is to protect people on the ground in the event of an airplane crash. The Hasty tract contains a 0.22 acre portion of the RPZ”.

“While it is true that there are RPZ violations at other airports, these are always cases where the violations date back for many years and are effectively grandfathered in. The FAA and TAD continuously work to remove non-acceptable uses from RPZs. As a case in point, in coordination with TAD, the Smithville Municipal Airport is working towards the fee simple purchase of nearly all of the RPZ off the end of Runway 6 so that you can control it. Also, a city park was removed several years ago so that your RPZ would be clear. Presently, the FAA and TAD considers new, non-acceptable RPZ uses, as a violation of an airport’s Grant Assurances”.

“The runway is presently 4,257 feet long. Unfortunately, this length is just under what most jet operators desire as a minimum length for operations. There is a clear line for a community between jet aircraft traffic and Industry. Many industries will bypass communities with runways that are too short. I have seen this over and over again in my career. While a 5,000 foot long runway would be ideal, even an increase to 4,500 would likely increase your jet traffic. Because of the topographic constraints found off the end of Runway 6, you could only ever expect to extend the runway to the northeast and are in fact, reasonable well positioned to do so. The ground is relatively flat, you own much of the property, and there are only a handful of houses that would need to be mitigated. A new subdivision would create new barriers to a runway extension. Not only would there be more houses in the path of an extension, but these new homes would likely be more valuable since they would be new and mitigating them would cost significantly more. For example, five new $200,000 homes would increase the cost to extend the runway by $1 million”.

“The airport currently has decent GPS instrument approach procedures with visibility minimums of one mile. The proposed subdivision, however; would restrict any ability to lower the approach minimums. This is due to the fact that to obtain lower minimums you would need to increase the size of the RPZ”.

“Subdivisions off the end of a runway inevitably lead to airport and aircraft noise complaints. I have seen this repeatedly in my decades of being involved with general aviation. One would think when someone bought a home near an airport that they would anticipate some airplane noise, but that is often not the case. It is likely that a new sub-division will lead to disgruntled homeowners”.

“As Middle Tennessee continues to see explosive growth, it is obvious to me that Smithville will, sooner than later, experience more development. Given Smithville’s idyllic scenery and proximity to Center Hill Lake it is a desirable place to be. With this increase in development and population will come an increase in activity at your airport. My recommendation is to do everything you can to make sure you do not impede the growth of the airport,” Bordley concluded in the letter.

The question of whether the county will transfer ownership of a portion of Parkway Drive, Allen Street, Shady Drive and 2nd Street to the City of Smithville will be answered Monday night, November 22 at 6:30 p.m. by the DeKalb County Commission during its regular monthly meeting at the Mike Foster Multipurpose Center.

During the regular monthly meeting Monday night, November 8 members of the DeKalb County Regional Planning Commission, over the objections of some residents in the neighborhood, voted to recommend that the proposal move on to the full county commission for a final decision. Member Bruce Malone tried to stop it making a motion that the request be rejected and although fellow member Jenny Trapp offered a second to Malone’s motion it failed on a 5 to 2 vote.

November 18, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

Should the local political parties allow partisan elections for the school board in DeKalb County?

Party leaders have until December 10 to notify the election commission of their decision in time for the 2022 elections.

Under a new state law, candidates for local school boards in Tennessee can now run in partisan races. The legislation was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee last Friday.

Lawmakers passed the bill during a late-October special legislative session.

Backers of the bill hope it will increase transparency and accountability for school board members.

For many years local school board elections have been nonpartisan in Tennessee and candidates were barred from campaigning as a nominee or representative of a political party when running for school board.

Now, local political parties are allowed to direct county election officials to hold a party primary for the seats.

In a letter to chairs of both the DeKalb County Democratic and Republican Parties, Administrator of Elections Dennis Stanley explained that the district offices for school board up for election in 2022 can be added to local party primary ballots in May 2022.

“The General Assembly passed legislation during their recent special session that allows parties to nominate candidates for any school board office. Because you have called a primary in May, you have the option to add school board offices that will appear on the August ballot to the primary. This includes county school districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 7,” said Stanley.

“If you would like to supplement your existing call for a primary to add school board offices, you must file an original written notice with our office no later than the close of business on Friday, December 10, 2021. Like any call for a primary, we request that it be signed by two members of the county executive committee,” Stanley said.

State lawmakers originally sought to require school board elections be conducted on a partisan basis but with several Republican lawmakers speaking out against it, the bill was amended to take a softer position making partisan elections optional instead.

The bill passed the House in a 52-39 vote and the Senate approved the measure 20-10, just over the 17 needed to pass in the upper chamber. All Democratic state lawmakers in both the House and Senate opposed the legislation.

The election commission will begin issuing candidate petitions for the May 3, 2022 primaries on December 20, 2021.

November 18, 2021
By: Dwayne Page

Jared Davis remains the leader on WJLE’s Fearless Forecasters panel picking winners as the college football season enters its 12th week.

Davis has an overall record of 107-58.

Eli Gill had the best single week record last week at 13-2 followed by Ricky Atnip and Chad Kirby each at 12-3, Grant James, Jared Davis, and Scott Goodwin each at 11-4, Scott Brown 10-5, and John Pryor 8-7

Overall, Chad Kirby remains in second place after 11 weeks at 106-59 followed by Grant James 103-62, Ricky Atnip 100-65, Eli Gill 99-66, Scott Brown 98-67, Scott Goodwin 95-70, and John Pryor 93-72.

Three of the Forecasters hit their underdog picks last week. Grant James added 10.5 points to his total as Georgia State upset Coastal Carolina 42-40. Chad Kirby got 5.5 points with Baylor’s win over Oklahoma 25-14 and Scott Goodwin picked up 2.5 points as Ole Miss defeated Texas A&M 29-19

Jared Davis maintains his lead for the most underdog points after 11 weeks at 44 followed by Ricky Atnip 26, Chad Kirby 23, Grant James 20, Scott Brown 11.5, Eli Gill 7, Scott Goodwin 6, and John Pryor 5.5.

Today (Thursday) the Forecasters will be picking winners in the following games:

Michigan State at Ohio State, Wake Forest at Clemson, Oregon at Utah, UAB at UTSA, UL Lafayette at Liberty, Air Force at Nevada, Iowa State at Oklahoma, SMU at Cincinnati, Baylor at Kansas State, Arkansas at Alabama, Florida at Missouri, Auburn at South Carolina, Vanderbilt at Ole Miss, South Alabama at Tennessee and in the NFL the Houston Texans at the Tennessee Titans.

The program is sponsored by the Charles D. Atnip Realty and Auction Company, Middle Tennessee Natural Gas, FirstBank, DeKalb County Insurance, Davis Auto Body, Gill Automotive, Love-Cantrell Funeral Home, and Dominos Pizza.

Catch the Fearless Forecasters today (Thursday) at 4:30 p.m. on WJLE.