WILMINGTON — The fate of helicopter tours originating within Wilmington city limits remains unchanged after Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Council members voted unanimously to continue the topic until the next council meeting after hearing from several members of the community during a public hearing.
The issue has been one of discussion for several months now, with the city’s Planning Commission voting to approve a new requirement that would prohibit helicopter tours as a temporary use permit within the city limits.
If approved, the new regulation would prohibit helicopter tour companies from taking off or landing within city limits – tours could still be conducted if they left from an airport though.
The Town of Carolina Beach’s Mayor Dan Wilcox attended the public hearing and offered City Council his opinion on the issue – an issue that Carolina Beach addressed earlier this year.
“When Ms. Ward did her event out of Carolina Beach a couple of years ago I was out there, it was an overwhelming success … the problem came when with regard to the landing site, it was basically in highway business district on a parcel of land between businesses and near homes … a lot of our citizens were in favor of helicopter tours but at the end of the day it was too close to residences and businesses,” Wilcox said during the public hearing.
Wilcox said he believes that the helicopter tours item would have been handled differently had the town had an industrial area.
“The situation you have here is completely different. If we had had an industrial zone that was 800,000 feet away from homes where the helicopter could fly directly out over the water … I think you’d have seen a different decision,” Wilcox said.
What seems to be the problem?
Owner and operator of High Tide Helicopter Tours Jessica Ward also spoke at the City Council meeting defending the use of helicopters for temporary use permits.
Ward said she was “very shocked” to hear the item come up for consideration in Wilmington. Ward has been operating her business out of Oak Island for four years and has received zero complaints, she said.
“These concerns with the noise and flying over residences can be 100 percent mitigated through changing the route of the flight and also through some specialized training to minimize the noise,” she said.
The last time Ward operated out of the City of Wilmington was on Fourth of July and she said a public record request showed only four complaints out of the more than 100,000 residents of Wilmington. Ward said she was actually tracked down by the operators of Azalea Fest and asked to operate helicopter tours during the festival.
“I am still kind of scratching my head about the real concern, but I do take it seriously and I want to certainly be a good neighbor and do what I can to be able to continue to operate when there are those festivals and special events,” Ward said.
Mayor Bill Saffo said if the city was to grant a permit for helicopter tours within the city, that he would want assurances that the flights would not get too close to the Riverwalk or residential areas, even if the FAA allows pilots to fly there.
Ward claimed that through the amendment of the flight pattern and avoiding the east side of the Cape Fear River the issues could be mitigated.
The council agreed to continue the public hearing until city staff can come up with a plan that would continue to allow the takeoff and landing in city limits, providing the operator of the helicopters follows the agreed upon fight pattern. While the city cannot legally set the flight pattern, if the tour company failed to stick to the flight plan future permits could be denied.
The City Council will revisit the issue at an upcoming meeting, when staff is expected to have new plans to address the issue.
Michael Praats can be reached at [email protected]
