- February 28, 2025
As Flagler County works toward an interlocal service boundary agreement for an Airport Protection Overlay Zone, Palm Coast city officials are focusing on the two main drivers of citizens' concerns with the Flagler Executive Airport — noise and safety.
At a Palm Coast City Council meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 25, Flagler County Growth Management Adam Mengel conducted a presentation on airport zoning regulations. Flagler County is proposing the adoption of an airport overlay ordinance, a statutory requirement for airports to ensure safety through zoning regulations regarding potential hazards or obstructions, which is scheduled for its first public hearing on April 7. Before that takes place, the ordinance will be examined on March 11 by the Flagler County Planning and Development Board — to be appointed as the Airport Zoning Commission by the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners on Monday, March 3.
In order for Flagler County to adopt the ordinance, it needs to work with the cities of Palm Coast and Bunnell, as the airport hazard area includes portions of both municipalities.
However, in light of citizen concerns, some Palm Coast City Council members said they were looking at the airport overlay zone from a safety and quality of life perspective.
Councilwoman Theresa Pontieri mentioned the rise of news reports regarding plane crashes, including the private plane crash on Feb. 14 in Flagler County near State Road 11, which resulted in the death of a Jacksonville pilot.
"I feel that there is a safety issue if we're having touch-and-gos occur when the tower is not manned," Pontieri said.
Flagler Executive Airport Director Roy Sieger said no touch-and-go operations are conducted at nighttime (the control tower is staffed from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily). Flights schools don't allow it. Instead, he explained, students will perform full stop taxi back maneuvers, where the aircraft lands, exits the runway and reenters for departure. Touch-and-go landings involve student pilots landing on the runway and taking off without making a complete stop.
Sieger also stressed that touch-and-gos are not a "dangerous operation."
Mayor Mike Norris then asked him if he was a pilot.
"I'm a student pilot," Sieger said.
"So you're not a pilot," Norris replied.
"I'm a student pilot and I've flown," Sieger said. "I've soloed. I've been around aviation for 40 years."
Norris asked about the benefit of allowing touch-and-go operations for the community. Sieger said he doesn't have the ability to tell pilots they cannot conduct touch-and-gos.
"We're a public use airport," he said. "We cannot stop any legitimate aeronautical use. A touch-and-go is an aeronautical use. That'd be just like saying that we want to be able to stop tractor trailers from going down I-95 — can't do it."
If the county can't regulate touch-and-goes, could they charge for them? For example, Norris asked, what if they charged every airplane $100 for every touch-and-go landing?
While the county could implement landing fees, it could not charge $100, Sieger said. Kissimmee Gateway Airport recently added landing fees, but it charges $3 per 1,000 pounds.
Last year, the Ormond Beach City Commission considered implementing a $3 landing fee, per 1,000 pounds, per arrival for the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport, but following significant pushback from the local aviation community, the commission tabled the matter and asked for the Aviation Advisory Board to review the issue.
During a subsequent legal presentation to the council, officials were told that for an airport to limit a particular aeronautical activity for safety and efficiency, such as touch-and-goes, "the limitation must be based on an analysis of safety and/or efficiency and capacity."
The city of Palm Coast can't pass a noise ordinance, but it can work with the Federal Aviation Administration to restrict the use of touch-and-gos, and it can request a new noise study with the Airport Master Plan.
This is about risk management, Norris said. He also questioned why the county did not create an airport overlay zone in 2017, as meetings had been conducted to begin the process.
"This is 2025 and we're going back to fix something that should have been done back in 2016, 2017, before all those houses were built out there," Mayor Mike Norris said. "... And the catalyst for the whole thing is about how the money is going to be allocated and distributed to the county."
Mengel said he appreciated the discussion, but that the ordinance is for land use. It would not have affected development around the airport had it been enacted in 2017.
"This ordinance is related to obstructions into your airspace," Mengel said.
