Aug. 29 special meeting will discuss skydive landings at airpark

The Fallbrook Airpark Advisory Committee will hold a special meeting Aug. 29 to discuss the possibility of Skydive America using a site at Fallbrook Community Airpark for its landings.

The Aug. 1 meeting of the advisory committee was slated to discuss airport operational issues for Skydive America, but when the property owner who had allowed parachuters to land on his vacant lot just north of Fallbrook Community Airpark received an administrative warning from the county’s Code Enforcement division, he retracted his permission. Skydive America subsequently ceased operations out of Fallbrook, but owner and operator Eric Hartung was at the Aug. 1 meeting and proposed an on-site landing area.

“At the meeting it came up,” said Lee Ann Lardy, the County Airports project manager for airport properties. “They would be interested in an airport site.”

Lardy asked Hartung to submit a proposal. “That was the first we’ve heard of it,” she said. “We really weren’t prepared to discuss the pros and cons.”

Lardy received the proposal on Aug. 8. “We’ll be evaluating that,” Lardy said. “Now that we have the proposal we’re going to start investigating that.”

The county’s Zoning Ordinance includes a “Participant Sports and Recreation” category, and the county’s Department of Planning and Land Use has determined that skydiver landings are subject to Participant Sports and Recreation use regulations. Such activity is allowed with a Major Use Permit, and Lardy will determine whether the airport’s Major Use Permit covers skydiver landings. “That’s one of the things I need to be researching,” she said.

Other stakeholders will also be providing input, including Camp Pendleton and the Federal Aviation Administration. “We can’t just do things in a vacuum,” said County Airports director Pete Drinkwater.

The Fallbrook Airpark Advisory Committee unanimously expressed a desire for the evaluation and scheduled the special meeting for Aug. 29.

Hartung will still be looking into off-site landing venues. “We encouraged him to be looking at all options,” Drinkwater said.

“There’s just no guarantee at this point,” Lardy said. “Either way the committee wanted to hear back from us.”

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