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Originally Posted by SDfan
Will, please help me understand this *again*
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Oh god this article....
The height limit thing is, again, removing the 500' above sea level limit. Not the 500' above ground level. So if your site is on a 30' hill, you can build a 500' tower instead of a 470' one.
Regarding "rules for housing under flight paths", state law says every airport needs an Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan (ALUCP) that lays out land usage restrictions for noise, safety, etc. The regional airport authority, which runs SDIA, makes one for each airport in the county based on state and FAA guidance. One of those guidelines says you're not supposed to allow any housing within 6000' feet of a runway end... a rule that just about every airport in California breaks because they didn't start making these ALUCPs until the early 2000s. So instead, they all just froze housing density at whatever it was when they adopted the ALUCP.
A local jurisdiction, like the City of San Diego, can override the ALUCP if it wants to. But then it also assumes all legal liability if, say, an airliner runs into the housing block they just approved. Because of the potential liability issues most cities approve these exemptions on a case by case basis. But then most cities aren't San Diego, where practically half the city is within a mile of one runway or another, and there's constant requests for exemptions. So the city got together and laid out a map of potential exemptions they'd allow, and basically tells the authority "we're preapproved everything on here". Saves everyone time really.
Man I wish journalists would spend a little more time trying to understand what they're writing about instead of being vague and confusing.