THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140435
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EASTVILLE LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Robert Starer rested against a wall in the courtroom foyer. The Northampton County Board of Supervisors had just ruled on his application to build an airstrip on his 375-acre waterfront farm.
It was late Monday night and it had been a long, exhausting effort by Starer.
In a 4-2 vote, the board decided that Starer, a Virginia Beach businessman, may build a 4,000-foot, turf runway.
``I'm going to build my runway,'' said Starer when asked about his next move.
Starer said he didn't know what he will do with the 5,000-foot runway that he built without zoning approval several months ago.
That strip - an 80-foot-wide ban of tilled, compressed soil in a weedy field - has been a problem for Northampton County officials since Starer built it.
Neighbors complained the original runway's construction was built in ``open disregard to authority,'' and state aviation officials labeled its flight patterns unsafe.
Then Starer, majority owner of Computer Dynamics Inc. in Virginia Beach, agreed in December to re-align the strip. He said he would build a new one parallel to the runway owned by Page Scott, whose decades-old airport operates on adjoining land.
In January, the county planning commission recommended that the length of the new runway be 4,000 feet, with a 1,000-foot buffer zone at the east end to protect nearby homes.
The commission also said the strip should have a turf surface, and that it be limited to personal and private use.
The request then went to Northampton's board of supervisors, which added more restrictions to Starer's special use permit before approving it Monday night.
Supervisor Suzanne Wescoat added a provision that if the land is ever subdivided, the airstrip's permit would expire. That would prevent the farm's development into an ``airport community,'' she said. The permit also forbids Starer from landing jets on the airstrip. by CNB