DeKalb Property Rights Threatened by

Proposed PDK Airport Ordinance:

            DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones continues to vigorously advocate a proposed Airport Compatible Use Overlay District (ACOD) ordinance that would constitute a fundamental assault on the property and democratic rights of DeKalb County homeowners, realtors, and businesses.  Under this ordinance, zoning decisions within the ACOD area (thousands of homes) would be removed from the hands of the elected DeKalb Board of Commissioners and placed wholly, and without any appeal process, in the hands of the appointed, rather than elected, DeKalb County Director of Public Works and the Director of DeKalb Peachtree Airport.  In addition, the ordinance would require that “any construction or alteration more than 200 feet in height anywhere in the county have FAA approval,” thus bringing the FAA, an appointive agency of the Federal government, directly into local zoning decisions throughout all of DeKalb County, not just within the ACOD itself.

            The proposed ACOD ordinance would require that “Within the ACOD, no material change shall be made in the use of land, and no structure or natural growth shall be materially erected, altered, planted, or otherwise established, in the ACOD unless a permit therefore shall have been applied for and granted by the Director of Public Works, subject to review by the Airport Director of DeKalb Peachtree Airport . . . ”  “. . . any permit or variance granted under the provisions of this Division shall be granted with the condition that the owner of the structure or natural growth in question shall enter into an avigation [flight] easement. . . ”  A model for that perpetual easement, binding on present and future owners, would require, among other things, that they give up any right of complaint or redress for “such noise, vibrations, odors, vapors, particulates, smoke, dust or other effects as may be inherent in the operation of aircraft of all type.”  Not only would this, in effect, be an uncompensated “taking” of private property, if more than 50% of a structure were damaged (for instance, by fire or wind), owners might not even be allowed to rebuild on their own property.

            This proposed ordinance was twice improperly introduced by CEO Jones’s administration this past year, and was only withdrawn temporarily due to strong opposition from the County Commissioners.  Now the CEO’s administration has proposed a text amendment to the Comprehensive Plan that would make the ACOD official.  Residents need to prepare to respond vigorously as this disastrous proposal moves toward a decision by the County Commission.

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