BELTON, Mo. — A Cass County Planning Board Tuesday temporarily grounded plans that could have some Cass County homeowners flying high.
A proposed subdivision would include the area’s longest paved private runway. The board hearing was for a special use permit for a private sewer septic system underground. But neighbors primary concerns are more about what could be overhead.
Peggy Bruce describes her Cass County neighborhood near 195th and Prospect as “very tranquil very quiet, very family oriented and I see airplanes flying over as a real impediment to that, both from the noise pollution standpoint, to the health to our kids.”
She and other neighbors are concerned about planes because of a proposed 156 acre Arrowhead Airpark planned on farm land across the street currently zoned agricultural.
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“I didn’t buy our house to live by an airport, that’s our major concern why are we putting an airport out at 200th and prospect,” said Greg Poremski.
At the meeting Tuesday the developer stressed the 94 home development would be an airpark, not an airport. It would have a 3,000 foot paved runway with edge lighting.
“It’ll have homesites where pilot owners can have the luxury of flying right outside of their front door basically,” Craig Wilcox, President, Arrowhead Airpark LLC, said.
“Here’s 100 houses plopped down on 150 acres in the middle of agricultural rural multi acre properties around it, trying to invent suburbia in the middle of rural America that feels like a misfit in so many different ways,” Bruce said.
One aviator who said he’s given a deposit for a lot pending approval spoke in favor of the project. More than a dozen others spoke against it.
“It’s in the very worst location you could ever imagine,” one man said.
“Nip it in the bud, I haven’t seen anything in this is right thing for our community,” another man said.
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Wilcox says not all the planes will be regularly flying. But there’s a a lot of plane owners on waiting lists for hanger space who want to be able to park their planes at their homes.
“A lot of it is just the enjoyment of like-minded residents who enjoy airplanes,” he said.
While Tuesday’s septic utility discussion or the continuation of the hearing next month might not have had all the details neighbors are looking for, airpark developers promise they are coming.
“We hope this is the first step toward more applications more public hearings and then we’ll have a lot more detail about how we’ll develop the airpark and run the flight operations,” Wilcox said.
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