Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is moving forward with a flight training facility in rural northeast Lake County, but has abandoned plans to build a larger campus at the site.
The Deep Woods Ranch property in Paisley, about 50 miles from the main campus in Daytona Beach, would provide a new paved airstrip and 10,000-square-foot hangar for university use.
Earlier this year, Deep Woods Ranch owner Kim Schale applied to the county to rezone 119 acres north of County Road 42 from Agricultural to Community Facility District (CFD). The move would have enabled the university to upgrade the area for potential use as a satellite campus.
The site currently contains a private, unpaved airstrip, but Embry-Riddle has agreed to pave the runway to meet federal aviation standards.
The county’s Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended approval of the rezoning by a 4-1 vote in May. During Tuesday’s county commission meeting, Lowndes attorney Tara Tedrow told commissioners the college had elected to withdraw the application and would instead work under permitted zoning uses.
“We were told that ‘yes, that is a conditional use permit still in good standing’ and we took everything else off the table,” she said. “When we considered coming this morning with an ordinance that would take everything off the table, it didn’t even make sense anymore to rezone the property, so the conditional use permit is all we are going to operate under.”
While the permit allows for the paved airstrip and hangar, regardless of rezoning, Tedrow said Embry-Riddle has voluntarily agreed to restrictions meant to assuage the concerns of local residents wary of the campus.
Only single-engine aircraft will be allowed to land or take off from the property, with no flights allowed between sunset and sunrise or during inclement weather events. Unaffiliated third party use is prohibited at the site, Tedrow said, with the exception of the forestry department in emergencies.
Students will not be allowed to use any drone, autonomous vehicle, unmanned aerial vehicle or unmanned aerial system on the campus site. All lighting for the hangar must be ‘dark sky’ lighting —lighting designed to direct light to the ground — and the runway will have no lighting, including for evening use.
Under current limitations, the campus will mostly be used for flight training.
A preliminary ‘wish list’ for the campus during early planning for the project, according to Tedrow, included classrooms, AI and drone training facilities and a U.S. Forestry Department building.
After hearing from community members concerned about noise, among other issues, the original plan of a hangar and paved runway proved much more feasible.
“We understand that that was giving some heartburn and causing problems and pushback from the community, we heard that loud and clear,” Tedrow said. “So after considering that, the first mission-critical thing the client wanted to do was use the conditional use permit as it exists today.”
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