A $26 million fly-in community at Sandpoint that the developer, SilverWing at Sandpoint LLC, characterized two years ago as ready for takeoff, hasn’t lifted off the ground since then—and currently is sputtering in litigation. 

A lawsuit filed by SilverWing blaming Bonner County for uncertainties in SilverWing’s airport access easements had been set to go to trial April 29, but U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge recently vacated the trial until he rules on a motion by Bonner County to toss the case for lack of material issues.

SilverWing filed a lawsuit in May 2012 in the state of Idaho’s 1st District Court, in Bonner County, seeking to protect its runway-access easement at the Sandpoint Airport and alleging monetary damages for lost sales due to questions about whether Bonner County intends to revoke the easement.

The lawsuit since has been transferred to federal court.

Michael Mileski, a principal in SilverWing, says, “The lawsuit centers around the county not allowing SilverWing to progress in a development that was already approved.”

SilverWing had received all land-use approvals from the city and county to move forward with the development in 2007, Mileski says. SilverWing is planned to have 44 residential units, each with attached plane storage.

“The main attribute of our development is access to the runway and people having hangar-homes,” he says. “Now the county is doing everything possible to terminate the easement and access.”

Scott Bauer, a civil attorney in the Bonner County Prosecutor’s Office, says the county hasn’t stopped SilverWing from proceeding with the development.

“There’s no injunction or restraining order,” Bauer says. “Litigation hasn’t forced them to do anything.”

He says he interprets the trial vacation notice as an indicator that the court likely will dismiss SilverWing’s complaint, because the brief vacation notice says the trial will be “rescheduled if necessary.”

Although the court earlier denied similar defense motions to dismiss the case, the court now has the benefit of reviewing much more information that’s been filed since then, he says.

Bauer is working with outside attorneys from an Irvine, Calif., law firm that specialize in airport law. At year-end 2013, the county’s defense expenses in the lawsuit totaled nearly $1 million, Bonner County Clerk’s records show.

SilverWing claims it has invested more than $16 million in the development. In addition to the taxiway, SilverWing has developed a model duplex, streets, and other infrastructure for the subdivision.

SilverWing bought the 18-acre development site just west of the southern portion of the airport’s 5,500-foot-long main runway at Sandpoint Airport in 2006, and Bonner County and the city of Sandpoint approved the development the following year.

Bonner County operates the Sandpoint Airport, which lies within the city of Sandpoint.

The development didn’t pass muster initially with the Federal Aviation Administration, which withheld funding for the Sandpoint Airport starting in 2008, alleging Bonner County didn’t have federal approval to grant SilverWing a perpetual easement allowing residential access between the development and the runway.

SilverWing claims the FAA in 2011 relented and grandfathered the existing access, while prohibiting any new such agreements at public airports.

The FAA’s change of course, though, didn’t exactly sound the all-clear for Bonner County. The FAA advised Bonner County that to implement improvements in its approved airport master plan, it would have to move the main runway 60 feet to the west, which would require SilverWing also to move its taxiway 60 feet west to maintain the legal minimum distance from the runway.

SilverWing claims in the lawsuit that such a move would reduce or eliminate prime lots in the development.

Bauer says Bonner County would rather not reconfigure the runway, and it might yet come up with a master plan that would keep the runway where it is and satisfy the FAA.

“We think the FAA likely will approve an amended plan, which will keep the runway in its existing alignment,” he says.

Mileski says SilverWing hasn’t been able to sell any units because potential buyers balk when notified that Bonner County’s current airport master plan calls for relocating the runway.

“The county’s actions have left SilverWing in a virtual no man’s land,” SilverWing’s civil complaint contends. 

The complaint also says that, “SilverWing has been significantly hampered in its efforts to market and sell its permitted and approved development to potential buyers, because the county publically committed to taking its property and extinguishing its access rights.”

Bonner County claims as part of its motion for summary judgment that SilverWing should have known about the FAA-approved master plan through normal due diligence prior to buying the property. 

The FAA, a regulatory body that also administers much of the funding for public airports, approved the master plan with the runway relocation in 2003.

“SilverWing’s failure to exercise sufficient due diligence as a developer unfortunately caused it to make a bad business decision to purchase the property in 2006 on the cusp of a disastrous economic downturn,” Bonner County says in court documents.

SilverWing claims in the lawsuit that Bonner County had represented to the developer that it had no plans to reconfigure the main runway at the Sandpoint Airport. 

SilverWing also claims Bonner County supplied the developer a different master plan for the airport that shows the runway in its current location.