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A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official says the City of Lewes has sole authority in determining where, or even if a helicopter landing pad for Beebe Medical Center should be constructed.
“We have no regulatory authority in the placement of a helipad. If the borough, town, village or city wants to prohibit a helipad, we have nothing to do with that decision,” said Jim Peters, FAA spokesman for the New England Region, including Delaware. Peters is based in Jamaica, N.Y.
The Lewes Planning Commission in July recommended Lewes Mayor and Council approve Beebe’s request to construct a helipad in what is now the hospital’s parking lot between West Fourth Street and Savannah Road.
But more than 40 homeowners signed a petition against the proposal citing concerns about safety, pollution and a decline in property values.
The city has scheduled a special meeting to hear public comment about the helipad at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 31, in City Hall.
Beebe Medical Center President Jeffrey Fried at this month’s council meeting said the hospital would go back to the drawing board in an effort to find a suitable location for the landing pad.
The FAA’s Peters in an Aug. 17 interview, said the agency’s only involvement with helipads is to know where they are in relation to airports and to the federal flyway, the “highway in the sky” used by aircraft.
Peters said the FAA handles paperwork called a notice of proposed landing site, filed by public or private helipad owners.
He said the landing site notice contains the latitude and longitude of sites and FAA officials examine whether a location could cause navigational interference.
“Other than that, we don’t lay down any operating conditions,” Peters said.
He said the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses the locating data to publish charts that include helipad locations.
Peters said the FAA offers helipad construction advice but use of the information is not required.
He said after a helipad is built, the FAA’s Flight Standards office does an on-site evaluation to check for potential hazards.
Beebe administrators say placement of the helipad is critical for the $25 million, 71,300-square-foot addition to the Rollins Building now underway.
The new facility will house expanded emergency medical services, critical care and medical-surgical units at the hospital’s main facility on Savannah Road.
The addition would increase Beebe’s130-bed capacity to 192 beds. Completion of the project is targeted for the end of 2006.
Jim Monihan, Beebe’s special projects administrator, says constructing a rooftop helipad on the new facility would be too costly because a stronger structure would be needed to support a helicopter’s take-off and landing.
Monihan said even with a rooftop landing pad, very large and expensive elevators would also be needed to transport trauma patients and life support equipment to ground floor emergency operating rooms.
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