EAST ROCKHILL >> Plans to add hangars at Pennridge Airport received both conditional use and preliminary/final land development approval from the East Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors June 20, but that still doesn’t mean the plans will fly.
Conditions attached to the approval may make it impossible to accept, the airport’s attorney said.
The airport on Ridge Road is asking to be allowed to add two hangar buildings with a combined nine units to its existing three hangar buildings with a combined 14 units. The new hangars would be near the existing ones and would replace outdoor airplane tie-downs. The airport is not planning to expand its runway and flight patterns will not change, airport representatives said during testimony in the conditional use hearing, which had sessions in March, April and May. One of the new hangar buildings would have room for planes with a 70-foot wing span and the other for planes with an 80-foot wing span, according to the information. More than one plane might be able to fit in a hangar unit if the planes were small ones, the airport said. There are currently about 40 airplanes at the airport, three of which are jets, the airport said.
Neighbors’ concerns about the plans include additional jet takeoffs and noise, particularly in the early morning hours. The airport has said the majority of the takeoffs and landings are during the daytime hours, and it will encourage plane owners to take off during those times, but it cannot restrict the takeoff times or when a plane arrives and lands.
The township’s conditional use decision includes 29 conditions, Patrick Armstrong, township solicitor, said prior to the board’s unanimous vote to approve the conditional use adjudication.
Armstrong also read aloud the list of conditions, including additional buffering; limiting the number of hangar units in the two new buildings to nine; no additional hangars being permitted on the property in the future; noise monitoring with the results reported to the township; the township being given a list of the resident aircraft; the airport resolving a drainage issue with a neighboring property; installation of an additional fire hydrant; firefighting foam being added at the airport; a monitoring well with annual water testing results provided to the township; erection of a 100-foot-long noise buffer or barrier on both sides of the runway where the aircraft begin takeoff; expansion and renovations to an existing stormwater basin, along with fencing being installed around the basin; the runway never being extended in the future; the airport providing the township with a long-range (10-year) plan for the property; including a provision in all future lease agreements for hangars on the property limiting takeoffs to between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. unless there is a “legitimate reason necessitating an early or late takeoff,” in which case notification would be required 48 hours in advance, approval would have to be received and each tenant would be limited to one pre-7 a.m. or after 10 p.m. takeoff per month; installation of additional security fencing and cameras; and the airport track and record flights in and out of the airport.
A copy of the full conditional use adjudication is available at the township’s website, eastrockhilltownship.org.
“These conditions just go too far,” Robert Gundlach Jr., the airport’s attorney, told the board.
“These conditions really restrict in the future the entire airport operations, restricting times when planes can take off and land as you proposed, restricting our ability to build additional hangar buildings, restricting the ability for any expansion of the runway at the airport,” he said. “Nothing is planned now to expand, but you’re attempting to tie the hands of the owner of this airport.”
The airport has made a “simple and harmless” request for planes that are parked outside to be able to parked inside instead, he said.
“I’d submit to you that these conditions just go too far,” Gundlach said. “The applicant is and has always been willing to sit down and work with the township and address concerns, but these just make the construction of these hangars not a practical endeavor.”
“The applicant has the right to appeal those conditions,” board member Jim Nietupski said later in the meeting in response to a resident’s question. “That’s just the process, so the ball’s going to be in their court now.”
Gundlach said he would be discussing the conditions with the airport after which a decision would be made on the next steps.
In separate actions at the June 20 meeting, the board gave preliminary approval to the airport’s plans to add a business park and preliminary/final approval to the hangar plans.
Much of the airport property, including the runway and the hangars, is in East Rockhill, but there are also parts that are in Perkasie Borough. The buildings currently proposed for the business park are in Perkasie, but stormwater management improvements are in East Rockhill. Additional business park buildings are planned in the future in East Rockhill, the airport has previously said. Perkasie has given preliminary approval for the buildings currently being proposed in Perkasie; East Rockhill’s preliminary approval is for the stormwater management improvements in East Rockhill. Final approval is still needed from both towns.
The East Rockhill preliminary approval is subject to his office’s review letter, “which has a handful of engineering items and the one major outstanding issue, which I think we’re all aware of, is the traffic study for what traffic improvements may be required,” Steve Baluh, East Rockhill’s engineer, said.
The traffic study is in the process of being completed, he said.
East Rockhill and West Rockhill officials have raised concerns about the impact on local roads of traffic from the planned business park.
The preliminary/final land development approval for the hangar plans is subject to the airport’s compliance with the conditional use conditions, Armstrong and board Chairman David Nyman said.
Before giving its approval to the hangar plans, the board reviewed and granted requested waivers including one waiving a requirement for a traffic study for the hangars. That separate traffic study isn’t needed because it will be done as part of the business park traffic study, Nyman said. The airport has also previously given information showing the hangars will add little traffic to the site.
A second waiver was for curbing internal parking areas and driveways at the airport, which Baluh said would not be conducive to the planes’ movement on the ground.
The board also agreed to waive a requirement that sidewalks be installed on Schoolhouse Road as part of the hangar approval.
“To me, in that area, sidewalks don’t make sense,” Nietupski said.
A fee-in-lieu-of will have to be paid for the waiver of the sidewalks, the board said, but the airport may have already paid, in which case it would not have to pay a second time.