MIDLAND- Some of the land over by the Midland International Air and Spaceport is being looked at very closely in the cities comprehensive plan. Once XCOR starts to have spaceships take off and land, there are limitations as to the number of people that can stand under their flight path.
The protective fly zones extend out from the runways that XCOR spaceships will fly over. The City of Midland is restricted on the number of people allowed to be in those zones. No school, churches or homes are allowed.
"When you have a subdivision, you could have 300-400 homes with say three people per home, now you start talking a lot of people," said Chuck Harrington, Development Service Director for the City of Midland.
As the city works on the 20 year comprehensive plan, they need keep calculating how many people are in the protective fly zones. Industrial use is allowed in the area, once the building and industrial material is approved by the city. This is in an attempt to making sure the disaster is kept at a minimum should a crash occur.
"We have to look at if it will impact the flight. If more things are put in the zones, there would effectively reduce the flight path the spacecraft would use. That's something we need to look at very closely," said Harrington.
Harrington says these restricted zones won't keep people from coming and wanting to build in Midland. He says there is still plenty of land in and around the city
