Dreaming of a hangar home?

[Neal]

I once had thoughts about either a home with my own grass strip or living in a hangar home community. I attended a seminar at EAA AirVenture (Oshkosh) about hangar home living and it almost immediately turned me off to the concept with restrictions, concerns about limited market for selling when you want out, and whatever else was said. Also curious of restrictions, I know one near me doesn't allow landing practice per se, they want you to get out and come back and keep noise down.

Any thoughts or opinions on hangar home living? If you have a hangar home, what location (generalized is fine). I see quite a few pop up in Texas, I think Montana would be ideal for me with my RV (motorhome) and a hangar home type setup. Get out of there in the winter, enjoy the good half of the year in that area.

 

[Waldom]

We built a house and hangar in a development restricted to five lots. It is located in the Finger Lakes region of New York. We have lived here for ten months and it has exceeded all of our expectations.

The developer, who also resides here, has successfully avoided an HOA. The reason that is important in this state is that an HOA has to be registered with a state bureaucracy that takes over a year to approve any amendments or changes.

The developer was the first to build on the site and resides here himself. He "screens" potential buyers by having a meeting in which all current residents meet the potential buyer. All the lots have been sold now and no prospect received a "thumbs down", so we will see how this works out. Residents own the lot property but the runway and access road is owned by the developer. There is a legal agreement in place in which residents have access to these and that they will remain in perpetuity. In return, the residents share the cost of maintenance. This agreement transfers if a resident sells their lot.

The runway is sod and 2200 feet in length. So far there have been no issues with neighbors that live adjacent to the airport. The developer is not a pilot and we are the only ones that have completed the build and keep an airplane here. Our airplane is a PA-11 that is fairly quiet. I have been reaching out to neighbors and giving rides in order to stay ahead of any issues. We do have occasional fly-in visitors including a weekly lunch get together at which up to nine airplanes fly in. I am considering changing the landing pattern of one runway to right hand traffic because that would avoid overflight of most existing airport neighbors.

The local government has zoning in place, but puts no restrictions on the airport. Our tax assessment does place a value on runway access but it is not significant.

The bottom line is that our experience has been trouble free with the caveat that the experience has been a short one.