Our story is not about when we bought our property, but rather when we sold it. Our point is that information coming from the Navy is unreliable and often misleading as our story shows.
Point #1 – Before selling our Coupeville property and moving to Eastern Washington in October of 2012, we lived south and next to the end of the runway of OLF for over 25 years. We would like to be clear that our experience was that he Growlers are/were louder by far than the Prowlers ever, ever were. The F18 Growlers shook the house like the A6 Prowlers never, ever did. We just want to be clear that the Navy is being dishonest when they say that the Growlers aren’t as loud as the Prowlers.
Point #2 – We had our home and property up for sale and had received a solid offer. A feasibility study was the only remaining hurdle for the buyers in order to complete the sale. They wanted to build a barn for 2 horses on the property. The County said no problem, but the Navy Liaison Officer, erroneously claimed that there was a “buffer” on our property adjacent to the Navy property line that basically claimed 200 feet into our property. This represented a “taking” of a full 1/3 of that property acreage. The Navy Liaison Officer said that absolutely NO development could be made in this area of any kind. We were shocked by this information that we had never heard of before. And So, the buyers cancelled their offer for fear that the Navy presence and influence would be a constant problem to any development that they might want to do their own property. This “taking” was never mentioned when we bought the property nor at any time there after. We could not find anything written about it and the county could not verify it with any documents.
We immediately lowered the sale price and included the Navy’s new misinformation regarding the “Buffer” on our disclosure form. We sold the property, but at a price $1000s of dollar lower than the first offer because of the Navy’s misinformation. We say misinformation because we found out later that there is and never was a “buffer” zone on our property.
Here is an email exchange between myself and State Senator Mary Margaret Haugen informing us that the Navy Liaison Officer that “…the buffer zone does not exist.” Please note how the Liaison Officer uses the word “confusing” to describe her misinformation. There is no doubt that she said exactly what we have reported above and we lost the sale and both buyers and sellers were harmed. We sold our property to another buyer just before this email exchange occurred.
From: Xxx Xxxxx
To: Mary Margaret Haugen, Washington State Senator
Subject: I am concerned that the Disclosure in our home sale is incorrect –
“The western border of this parcel is encumbered with a Buffer Area Overlay that extends from the edge of the Landing Field Clear Zone 200’ into the parcel. There is also a Sloping Clear Zone that extends into the parcel that has a distance to height ratio of 7:1 for building structures.”
Is there a 200′ Buffer that extends 200′ into our property?
Xxx Xxxx
MMHaugen Response:
From what I understand, the buffer zone does not exist. When I spoke to Jennifer Meyer of NAS Whidbey she thinks she may have given some information that was confusing. She asked that I pass on her contact number to you if you would like to call her. She would like the chance to explain the situation better.
She also found a copy of the 1986 AICUZ. There are no APZ’s in Coupeville. However, the field carrier landing pattern for each runway end, both day and night patterns, is depicted and it looks a lot like the designated FCLP’s that have been recently redefined as APZ II at Ault Field.
For Navy definitions, there are no APZ’s at the Outlying Landing Field in Coupeville because the number of operations per flight path does not exceed the threshold (5 thousand ops per year) required for that designation