The Mathews County Board of Supervisors had a tense discussion Tuesday in response to a request by developer Joe Perdue that he be allowed to place a turf landing strip for his own private aircraft on property he owns on Route 14 near the Mathews Transfer Station. After much wrangling, the matter was tabled until January.
Perdue initially made the request during the November meeting, but supervisor Charles Ingram said that he wanted to talk to neighbors in the area before voting on the request.
During introductory remarks, Planning and Zoning Director John Shaw explained that the landing strip would not be an airport, but just a 1,300-foot-long grass runway with no paved surface and that it would only be used by a single private plane in daylight hours when the weather is good.
“No land will be cleared,” he said. “It’s just an agricultural field that would be mowed.”
He said that several people had signed in favor of the strip and that property owners in p...