Dale Burgdorf

It may be time for a follow up on your Greedy? Or, Evil? piece from 3/2006. You captioned our neighborhood (AirPark Dallas) article by Jake Batsell from the DMN, and had good comments about the Billingsley's bullying and avarice. I apologize in advance for the long post, but wanted to give the rest of the story firsthand.

Fast forward to today, and indeed the Billingsley's (Henry and Lucy) have been busy throwing their weight around. As you will recall, we are a small fly-in community otherwise known as an airpark, conceived and built in the late '60s by Mr. Milton Noell and his son, David. It is styled as a public use, privately owned airport.

The Noell's placed restrictive covenants that run with the land and preserve the aviation nature of the neighborhood. Approximately one-half of the lots were sold over time to pilots and "people who like airplanes". Some two-thirds of those lots have homes with hangars attached for the owners to keep their aircraft in the back yard. Similar to a golfing enthusiast living on the fairway.

Henry Billingsley came along in the early '80's and bailed out a financially strapped Milton Noell by purchasing the remaining unsold lots and Milton's interest in AirPark Estates. That put him as an owner of just under 50% of the lots at AirPark.

The restrictive covenants specify that for the scheme of the neighborhood to change, or to make any changes in the restrictive covenants, that a vote of three-fourths of all the property owners lots is required.

Billingsley recently has come to the realization that he could not get past the restrictive covenants to further his agenda of demolishing the runway, and developing his lots into more commercial buildings.

There also exists a neighborhood association that governs the neighborhood, initially set up by the Noells, called the Zoning Committee (ZC). An election is held every 2 years to populate the ZC with a simple majority vote for 3 seats in the ZC ( Milton and David Noell were granted permanent seats within the ZC). Milton Noell died in the 90's, and his seat was left vacant.

Until 2005, Billingsley had never been able to get the property owners to vote him into the ZC. Strangely, before that election, a couple of the property owners were "enticed" to vote for Billingsley and his two colleagues, giving him a majority vote for the first time. (Those two residents have since sold and moved away.) Since then, he has won two more elections by "winning " over a vote or two.

The most recent election, held in '07, had a one lot margin victory for the Billlingsley's (vs. a tie if the one lot hadn't changed sides). The deciding vote in that election was due to the sale of a home/lot to Billingsley from an out of work homeowner, who struck some kind of arrangement to allow him (the past owner) to keep living in the home, but Billingsley got the ownership and thus the vote.

Now that Billingsley has control of the governing body charged with "maintaining the best interests of the community", he felt he could proceed with impunity to further his concept of commercial development.

Several times, Billingsley has been challenged by the homeowners that some of his actions at AirPark were not in the best interest of the community, but were quickly rebuffed. His statement has always been "if you don't like it , then take it to court". Indeed, several lawsuits have been filed over the years for disagreements the homeowners had with Billingsley.

His latest moves began in the 2007, when Billingsley petitioned Hebron to de-annex his property, and then requested the City of Carrollton to annex a parcel of the land. The homeowners did then, and still do now, reside on unincorporated land. Billingsley succeeded in getting his property annexed. Several public hearings were held before the Carrollton City Council, with the vast majority of speakers advising against annexation. The only speakers who spoke for it were Billingsley and his attorney.

Close to 1000 signatures from Carrollton voters opposed to the annexation were also presented to the Council, but to no avail. The city website displayed that Billingsley had proposed a mixed use development on his property for Carrollton's approval before the annexation was even approved. That listing suddenly disappeared once the annexation hearings took place.

Still hoping to have the City help in his agenda of closing and removing the landing strip, Billingsley's next move was to help the city design an ordinance aimed at the AirPark. Part of his scheme was to use safety and scare tactics by emphasizing previous incidents at the AirPark. With Billingsley's help, the proposal for the ordinance contained line items from the NTSB citing previous accidents/incidents at AirPark. With 45 years of history, the only items he could come up with involved no injuries to any person on the ground, nor any damage to ground structures. The safety record at AirPark is actually exemplary.

By his own admission, he did not then or now ever intend to comply with the Ordinance as the property owner. Once adopted by the Carrollton, again with opposition from the public, the ordinance was enacted at the end of '08.

Once passed, the entire annexed portion of AirPark, which includes about half the neighborhood, was immediately out of compliance with the new ordinance. This ordinance contains many requirements that are out of character for our sized airport, actually they would be more in line with Love Field. The city then moved in March this year with enforcement to abate the violations, which could culminate in demolition of the landing strip and airplane hangars.

The District Court of Collin County recently issued a temporary injunction against the Zoning Committee (currently run by Henry Billingsley, his wife Lucy and an employee) to take immediate steps to comply with the ordinance. Billingsley continued to tell the City of Carrollton Property Standards Board that he has no intention of complying. The Judge also affirmed easement rights are held by the homeowners with respect to the runway.

On June 18th, the PSB of Carrollton issued the order to cease all aviation activity at AirPark if the ordinance is not fully complied with by 30 days.

The homeowners of AirPark have taken the steps and spent thousand of dollars to comply and offered the Zoning Committee assistance. Billingsley has ignored the offer, and still continues to ignore the notices of violation from the City. The Carrollton City Attorney has also ignored the homeowners and told the Board to do the same since the City has not been included in the lawsuit. That may change very soon.