SB 516

Under current law, any county or city, village, or town (municipality) in this

state may own and operate airports or airport facilities, such as landing fields or

take-off strips, or spaceports or spaceport facilities (collectively "airports"), either

within or outside the limits of the county or municipality. A county or municipality

that owns an airport may protect the aerial approaches to the airport by adopting an

ordinance regulating, restricting, and determining the use, location, height, number

of stories, and size of buildings and structures and objects of natural growth in the

vicinity of the airport (within three miles of an airport or five miles of a spaceport).

To initiate the adoption of an aerial approach ordinance, one of the following must

hold at least one public hearing after giving the public notice and formulate a

tentative ordinance: 1) if a county owns the airport, the county park commission or,

if the county has a county executive or county administrator, the county park

manager, except that if there is no such commission or manager, a committee of the

governing body of the county; 2) if a city or village owns the airport, the city or village

plan commission or, if there is no such commission, a committee of the governing body

of the city or village; or 3) if a town owns the airport, a committee of the governing

body of the town.

Under this bill, an aerial approach ordinance is always initiated by a committee

of the governing body of the county or municipality that owns the airport, which, as

under current law, must hold at least one public hearing after giving notice and

formulate a tentative ordinance.