Evansville Property Owners Notified of New Airport Zoning Ordinance Proposal
If you live in Northern Vanderburgh County, specifically in the area around Evansville Regional Airport as I do, you probably received a letter from the Airport's Executive Director. I'm not even going to pretend that I knew what any of it meant at first. So, I went over to evansvilleapc.com for some research about this strange letter.
See the full letter below.
What is Zoning?
The city and county have zoning codes that basically spell out what you can and can't do with your land. The airport's footprint itself has grown a lot over the course of 10 years. This growth and changes have kept the runways safe and follows the FAA's guidelines. Evansville Regional has a Master Plan in place and needs to protect the land surrounding the airport.
Legend:
INTERSTATE: Cc2 A
MAJOR ROADS: Cc1 B1
LOCAL ROADS: B2
What's Changing?
In order to further protect the land and airspace surrounding Evansville Regional Airport, amendments to the code for land use have been proposed. That is what the letter we received eluded to. As long as the flight plans for aircraft do not involve going over my house, I think I'm ok!
Here are some of the proposed changes. You can see the full document with specifics HERE.
WHEREAS, it is in the best interest of the community to protect the airport from further encroachments of land uses that are incompatible with the airport, and particularly to protect the approaches to airport runways and the surrounding airspaces by preventing future land use conflicts for reduced exposure to the impacts of airport operations, by limiting the creation of new wildlife attractants and the height of encroachments into the runway approaches for enhanced aircraft safety; and WHEREAS, the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Area Plan Commission has received a request from the Evansville-Vanderburgh Airport Authority for adoption of a Zoning Ordinance amendment to accomplish the goals outlined above so that the airport can remain viable in the future; and WHEREAS, the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County finds that it is in the best interests of the County overall, the airport, and the surrounding property to establish reasonable land use regulation for the airport impact area by adopting an airport overlay zone, as most other communities in Indiana with a public use, commercial passenger airport have done, to address incompatible land uses near the airport per Federal Aviation Administration guidance; and WHEREAS, Title 17 of the Vanderburgh County Code, "Land Use and Zoning", regulates local land uses and contains general development standards (e.g. height limits) by zoning district, but does not currently have provisions specific to the needs of the airport and the airport impact area; and WHEREAS, in response to the Airport Authority's request, the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County desires to add land use controls to Title 17 specifically addressing the property surrounding the airport in the form of an airport overlay zone
Questions or Concerns?
If you live, work, or own a business in the area of Evansville Regional, you may still have some questions. There will be a Public Hearing to consider the Airport Overlay Ordinance on Tuesday, August 8, 2023, at 5:00 PM at the Old National Events Plaza in Downtown Evansville. Or you can call 812.435.5226.