Dispute Over Runway To Land In Court Neighbors Sue County To Shut Down Private Airstrip 50 Feet From Property Lines

Neighbors of a Garwood airstrip are suing developers and Kootenai County to stop planes from landing near their homes.

Residents of the Bar Circle S Ranch subdivision say a private runway within 50 feet of their property lines violates county law. They say they have wrangled with the county since 1992 - through telephone calls, with letters and at public meetings - but the county won’t enforce the law.

“After five years, we had to do something,” said resident Diane Corsi. “It’ll have to be settled in court, even though it’s pretty obvious to us that the laws have been broken.”

The lawsuit asks the court to force the county to block developers from using the airstrip.

Developers G & T Investments maintain they have followed county rules, but they admit the lawsuit is not a surprise.

“It’s something you always kind of have in the back of your mind in these things,” said attorney Malcolm Dymkoski, who represents G & T.

At the center of the debate is the action - or lack of action - by county commissioners that allowed the subdivision and the airfield to exist side by side despite county laws that ban runways within 2,000 feet of homes.

Two calls to county commissioners were not returned Thursday.

Dymkoski maintains the airstrip was there long before the subdivision and that in 1980, commissioners acknowledged that. Commissioners cited the runway as a reason to allow industrial development there.

But residents aren’t convinced the runway ever formally existed and say it clearly didn’t in 1990, when their subdivision was approved by county commissioners. Commissioner Frank Henderson, according to county records, even said so at the time.

Once an airstrip has been abandoned for six months, it cannot be returned to use without a permit.

“There were trees growing on it, and the trees had at least 10 years’ growth on them,” said attorney Scott Reed, who represents the neighbors.

Only after homes started going up at Bar Circle S were the trees cut down and the airstrip repaved, Reed said. At that time, the county refused to stop the developers.

Dymkoski says that’s because the runway never actually had been abandoned. He points to the Federal Aviation Administration, which continued to list the runway as operational through the 1980s when it was covered with trees.

“We still believe we’re correct,” he said. “We did what the county allowed us to do.”

But Reed sees it another way.

“They were putting the airstrip down and had houses closer than 2,000 feet,” he said. “That’s a pretty clear violation.”

, DataTimes