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This web site will be coming down in a week or so. We have successfully had the ordinance repealed! We want to thank all those that helped us defeat this ordinance. This site will be used for other purposes soon.
See new pictures page! Also see new information at the end of the QUESTIONS page Please contribute to our legal defense fund. Click on the CONTRIBUTE button below and to the left.
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So what does this Ordinance mean to me? Well, if you are an experimental aircraft builder or aircraft restorer in Jacksonville it means a lot. Essentially it means that you can no longer legally enjoy your hobby at your home. Actually, you can not even legally build a model airplane, rocket, or kite in your home according to the definition in the ordinance. If you are the owner of an ultralight, glider, hang glider, small airplane with folding wings, powered parachute, or an airboat you can no longer legally bring it home on a trailer unless you are able to park it in an enclosed garage and even if you do that you are not legally allowed to do any work on it even in the privacy of your own garage. O.K., but I don't have an airplane or airboat. Why should I care? Because we have rights in this country and we can not allow our government to just take them away from us. City, county, state, or federal government, it does not matter. Rights that all of us use every day or rights that are exercised by only some of us, it makes no difference. We can not allow things like this to go unchallenged. There are other regulations that restrict what we can and can not do. How is this different and why do you consider this to be unfair or unconstitutional? Because this ordinance unfairly singles out airplanes and airboats and people working on them. Why can I build a race car or a boat or furniture in my garage as a hobby, but not an airplane? Why is it O.K. that every third house on my street has a boat on a trailer that is legal, but an airboat or an airplane is not? How can city council members have the gall to say what I can or can not do inside my closed garage, living room, or bedroom? I would certainly understand this with activities that endanger the health or welfare of other neighbors, but there are already ordinances that cover noise, dangerous activities, and nuisance activities. What started all this? You must be causing trouble. One nosy next door neighbor is all I know about. The same neighbor that used to call me on Thursday nights to tell me it was time to take my garbage cans down and call on Friday mornings two hours after the trash was picked up if I had not brought the cans back up yet. The same neighbor that I have caught trespassing on to my property to move my garbage cans behind my fence where she wouldn't be able to see them. The same neighbor that would call me to tell me that my grass was getting a little too long and I needed to mow it. The same neighbor that does the same things with several other neighbors that I know. And the same neighbor that has apparently nothing better to do than call the city and complain until they try to appease her. You must get a lot of complaints about things other than just airplanes. I have had the police at my house more times than I can count from everything to where I park, what I park, noise, and what direction my outside lights shine. How many of those times have they found that I was doing anything wrong and given me a citation or a written or verbal warning? None, nada, zip. How many other neighbors have ever complained about anything I have ever done? Not a single one that I am aware of. Most of my neighbors don't even know I exist. What has the city done so far? First it started out as warnings about having an airplane (a very small Midget Mustang with no wings) occasionally parked in my driveway when I needed to make some room in my garage do to other work and I had to get it out of the way. First there were warnings for parking of recreational vehicles, performing major repairs to a motor vehicle not under cover, and several other things. These were easily shot down by sending them copies of Florida statutes and FAA regulations defining what is a recreational vehicle, what is a major repair to an airplane, etc. I wound up with a return email that they have reviewed the rules and I was correct. Next they came back with a citation on an ordinance for "Operations or structures not in character with a residential district" and one for "Improper land use". At the time I was working on the Midget Mustang in my garage and I had a KR-2 parked in my backyard behind a 6' fence where it could not be seen by anyone unless they were peeking through the fence and I was not working on that plane outside. I spent about $800 in legal fees fighting that one in court and the judge ruled in my favor and even stated in his final order "It is in keeping with a neighborhood to work on building, sanding, restoring items as a hobby in a garage" and "It is unreasonable to assume that residents do not do repair and restoration work in their garages". I thought that was the end of it until several months later I got another citation for violating the court order. Violating the court order? All the order did was to dismiss the charges and state that I was not breaking any laws. How could I possibly be violating it? Well the order also stated "The statute does not apply to keeping a plane behind a privacy fence nor working on one as a hobby in a garage." because that is were they were when I was cited the first time. Seems someone's screwed up thinking interpreted that as saying that I could only keep a plane behind a fence or in a garage. At the time of the second citation the Midget Mustang was done and flying and was living at the airport. I had a small Sonerai that I sold to someone in Seattle. He was arranging to have it truck shipped to Seattle so I folded the wings and put it on its trailer (which had a valid license plate and registration) and brought it home from the airport and parked it on my side driveway until it was time to bring it to be loaded in a truck for shipping. How an order that states that there is no problem with having a plane in my garage or in my back yard could possibly be interpreted to mean that I can not have one on a trailer in my driveway is beyond me. In fact there is even a specific ordinance allowing a trailer to be parked in a side yard which is where it was. This one cost me about $1,500 to fight in court and was won even more easily than the first one. I was back in court again two weeks later for a second violation of the same thing that was cited before the final judges ruling on the first violation. The city dropped that one when the judge called the case. Actually, the city's general council stated to the judge that the defendant had paid the fines and they wanted to drop the case. I was sure to let the court know that that was NOT the case. The city was dropping the case because they had already been defeated on it. I at least would admit it if I lost. You can read the whole judge's order here: So if you have already proven yourself in court why would they write a new ordinance just to try to defeat you? I have no idea. Did I embarrass them in court? Probably. Is there a squeaky wheel calling them every day that they are trying to stop? Probably. Is someone just trying to one up me and show their power? I have no idea. Why don't you try to talk to the councilman and resolve this? Because he refuses to talk to me. I can't get past his assistant. I went to the council office to try to talk to him or set up a meeting and the best I could do was speak to his assistant from the phone in the lobby and I could not get a meeting. I actually called before I got the first citation when I was getting warnings. Someone suggested that if I had a problem with zoning enforcement that I should contact my city councilman to see if he could help me. After several attempts only being able to speak with his assistant I was told tat he was not willing to get involved in a dispute between two neighbors and he could not help. We see where that went. New 6/25/06 How did this ordinance get passed without anyone affected by it knowing about it? The city needs to publish notices of public hearings 10 days before the hearing. There were two notices published on this, one was before the meeting where it was first read and one was before the meeting where it was voted on. I see these types of notices published all the time in the Florida Times Union. That is our local paper with an average daily circulation of about 169,000 and about 220,000 on Sundays. These particular notices were published in the Financial News and Daily Record. I called them and they told me that they have an average circulation of about 5,500. I spoke to a lot of people in Jacksonville and found very few that had ever heard of this paper. They advertise that they are they are the official court newspaper and the official Jacksonville Bar Association and Middle District Bankruptcy Court paper. I assume that they meet the requirements of a "Paper of general circulation and not a specialty paper" (don't have the exact wording right now) as required for publication by the Florida Statutes, but it is obviously not the paper that most of the average citizens of Jacksonville read every day. Now what are the criteria that decide which notices get published in the Times Union and which get published in the Financial News? I have no idea, but I would love to know. Is there a legal or moral obligation for the city to notify someone that they know will be affected by a new ordinance before a public hearing? Don't know. I am not a lawyer. Here is the link for the Financial Times. http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/ So why didn't you just move the planes when you got the warnings? Why wait until you get a fine? Because I feel very strongly that I am within my rights to do what I have been doing. I will not let anyone try to impose ridiculous or unfair rules on me. If I let this ordinance go and just comply with it I will not get "My day in court" and the opportunity to turn this around. I am fighting to prevent this ordinance from setting a precedent for this happening to others and a precedent for our city council to just arbitrarily make rules on a whim without being challenged. This is from an email on this subject on the RV list. I could have never said it better myself. "To say that our rights are actually privileges is to say that someone, presumably some level of government, has the power and the right to grant or deny those privileges. That premise is completely backwards. In the U.S. at least, government exists expressly by the consent of the governed, and our federal and individual state constitutions are expressly written to limit the power of the government, not the citizens. It is the nature of government to constantly try to push the limits of its power, as sure as it is the nature of fish to swim or dogs to bark, which is exactly why it is in all of our interests to push back. Regulations are written by people who for whatever reason believe they have the power and the right to tell other people how they should live their lives. Often this is to force inconsiderate people to respect the rights and autonomy of their neighbors, but it would seem to me that just as often it is by inconsiderate and dominating people to try to force others to live their lives according to the regulator's ideas of what is good for them. A third reason, often behind onerous zoning laws, is blatant self-interest at the expense of those without the political power to resist. I would encourage those who value their freedom to make their own decisions about their life to push back, never accepting the false premise that they live by the permission of any other individual or group or government."
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