Model aviators buzz Borough over noise regs

Frontiersman

PALMER — Model airplane enthusiasts descended on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly this week, upset that the Borough’s newly passed noise ordinance will banish their hobby to the hangar.

Borough Mayor Curtis Menard vetoed changes to the Borough’s noise ordinance after the assembly approved them Jan. 15. The changes added decibel limits to sound coming from amplified musical instruments or stereos and added a section putting limits on how loud powered model vehicles could be.

Menard said he didn’t think the radio-controlled airplane folks were given enough notice.

“I felt that it wasn’t well announced in the paper,” he said.

The assembly eventually voted to overturn Menard’s veto, but agreed to put together a working group made up of three model aviation enthusiasts and three affected homeowners to try and reach a compromise.

Tom Simes of Anchorage, president of the Alaska Radio Control Society, along with a dozen other enthusiasts, testified in favor of the veto. About 50 model pilots filled the audience at the meeting, held Tuesday at the Palmer Train Depot.

Simes said after the meeting he was disappointed the mayor’s veto was overridden. For now, he said, model airplane use in the Borough, at least at the group’s Moffitt Field airstrip off Scott Road in Palmer, has ended.

The way the ordinance is written, it holds the landowner liable for noise violations on his or her property, Simes said.

“No property owner in their right mind would rent to us,” he said.

The Moffitt Field site is rented year-to-year, he said. At the group’s meeting this spring, he doubts members will vote to rent the land again in light of the ordinance change.

Simes testified the ordinance has serious technical flaws, disallowing noise louder than 3 decibels above ambient sound at night and 5 decibels above ambient sound during the day. That, he said, applies to the bulk of the gas-powered airplanes the group flies.

Emerson Krueger, a planner with the Borough who wrote the ordinance change, said that in regard to writing noise regulations, the Borough has usually reacted to complaints.

“You could attempt to provide regulations for every conceivable action or source of complaint, but we don’t really have the resources for that and it really isn’t a prudent way to try to run things,” Krueger said.

The first noise ordinance was put in place after complaints of loud music coming from Fishheads Bar and Grill, a now-defunct nightclub that was attached to the Northbowl Bowling Center west of Seward-Meridian Parkway on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

The portion of the ordinance change passed Jan. 15 that added decibel limits on amplified sound came about after Church on the Rock on Machen Drive in Wasilla was cited for having its worship music too loud. Pastor David Pepper said the church worked with the Borough to put quantifiable limits on noise.

The other part of the ordinance change dealing with powered motor vehicles came about, in part, because of complaints from neighbors of Moffitt Field, Emerson testified Jan. 15.

Palmerite Jerry Baker was one of those who complained. Her home is in the Moffitt Field flight pattern. At the Jan. 15 meeting, she said that in the summer months it’s like living next to a “commune of chainsaws.”

Tuesday, she told the model enthusiasts that while they may be fine, upstanding people, they are not considerate neighbors.

“You go there for a little while and go home. We have to be there all the time,” Baker said.

Simes said he intends to work with the Borough on the committee assigned to come up with a compromise that will go before the assembly in the form of an ordinance change.

“The place we’re flying right now is absolutely beautiful,” Simes said. “It’s unique; we’ve had a good run. If we are legitimately being a problem to the community we need to go someplace else.”

That someplace else could potentially be a swath of land the Borough plans to offer up as a designated spot to fly model airplanes at Point MacKenzie.

Borough Spokeswoman Patty Sullivan said the Borough isn’t trying to end model aviation, just find a solution that satisfies everyone.

Simes said he’s not sure if the Point MacKenzie solution is the right one. He hasn’t been given any details about the site.

“One thing that we know is that Point MacKenzie is in the flight corridor for Elmendorf Air Force Base, Merrill Field and Anchorage International Airport,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.