Publicity stunt leads to temporary city ordinance after helicopter lands on Herriman home
HERRIMAN — Herriman City Council approved a temporary ordinance to prohibit helicopters from taking off or landing in residential areas during an emergency council meeting Friday.
It comes after a helicopter landed on top of a home with a landing pad on the roof Thursday afternoon. Mayor Palmer said the city received dozens of calls when the incident occurred.
“People (were) concerned, calling 911, houses shaking, residents with PTSD worried about where the sound was coming from. This was a concern, and we knew we had to nip it in the bud right away. We knew we had to deal with it,” Palmer said.
Palmer added that the ordinance was not a personal attack on the homeowner but their way of addressing residents’ safety.
According to Palmer, the Federal Aviation Administration has jurisdiction over anything in the air, but municipalities and local governments have land use authority.
Originally, there was no law preventing an aircraft from landing or taking off near a residential area. But after Friday’s city council meeting, the temporary ordinance bars helicopters to land or take off within 1000 feet of a home for the next six months.
The homeowner, who is also the home’s contractor, Kyle Norman, told KSL the scene was an attempt to have more eyes on the home in an effort to help sell it.
“Mostly as a publicity stunt,” Norman said. “Our true means is to advertise the house.”
Norman said the pad was intended to be a shaded area on his rooftop deck, but wanted to do something out of the ordinary.
Real estate agent Paige Stecking said Norman contracted a friend to fly their helicopter on top of the home “to show how well built the home was.” Stecking added that it was a “one-time thing” in an attempt to make a promotional video to sell the house.
Norman apologized for any concerns he may have caused since many residents may have never seen a helicopter landing before.
“It was not intended to scare anybody,” Stecking said.
Norman said he had the approval to build the pad on his roof. The city, however, said nothing was ever approved but could not go into specifics.
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