I'm toying with the idea of building a Highlander to put on floats and keep at my lake house. The lake is pretty round, about 3100' long by 2000' wide, and has sparse housing on it- most parcels are over an acre. Lake is at 13' MSL. Power boats are allowed on the lake, and I haven't yet talked to the sheriff (legally owns access to the lake) about putting a seaplane on it, but I believe in my powers of persuasion. If I did this, I would do my best to be a good neighbor- only operate during normal daytime hours (avoid quiet time operations), offer rides to neighbors, etc...

So here is my fear: assuming the sheriff gives permission initially, but the neighbors start to complain about the noise, can the sheriff retract permission for operating a seaplane on the lake? Her is my idea- would it help at all if I were to (after I got permission from the sheriff) do the paperwork with the FAA to have the lake designated as a seaplane base? From looking at the paperwork, it looks like I'd have to designate my house as the base essentially as the lake being the runway.

Has anyone done this? Would my idea actually make it more difficult to regulate seaplanes away from the lake (if they did try)? Is it worth the paperwork and extra time? Is it even a good idea to designate a lake this size as a seaplane base since it is too small for many seaplanes? Anything else I should be thinking about?

I would recommend getting in touch with your nearest seaplane pilots association rep. Become a member, and they will help you get involved with this issue. They have the know how to make stuff like this happen.
I hope you make it work! The more seaplanes responsibly running around the better!

That's a good idea that I hadn't thought about. Seems obvious now.

I have looked around at what local seaplane pilots groups there are, including of course SPA, but everything I see makes it look like they were active 5+ years ago, but have somewhat fallen off. I think after finding that, I somewhat assumed they weren't very active anymore. I guess I made an incorrect assumption.

I totally get that. And maybe you will find some cobwebs in your immediate area, but SPA is a pretty active association and there will be someone somewhere who will answer the call and help you out : )

Im not sure about other states, in CT where I live you have to get local then state approval before going to the FAA. Getting local approval usually lets the cat out of the bag and now all the locals are notified and they usually don’t want a seaplane base. To make it worse they often want to stop you from conducting any operations and they may enact local legislation to ensure they get their way.
Also I’m not sure how the FAA would feel about approval of a seaplane base on a 3100’ lake. It’s kind of inviting some inexperienced idiot to come in with something that needs more than 3100’ and have a mishap.

Some years ago, a guy I knew bought a house on a nice little lake & planned to fly his floatplane(s) off of it.
Before he even moved in, the neighbors heard about his plans & raised hell with the county about it.
They didn't ban floatplanes on that lake, but they did enact a 5 mph speed limit (aka "no wake zone")
which served the purpose of keeping float planes off of it-- sneaky but effective.

Frankly, you'd be foolish to even start the process with the FAA before you've at least convinced the locals (neighbors, county/city, etc) that you're not going to be a threat. Do some serious research first, then try to consider all the potential hiccups that might occur.

If the City/County is on board, then you go into a major campaign with prospective neighbors. Assure them you're not going to operate ten flights a day out of that lake. Sell them on the safety, etc, etc.

THEN you go to the FAA.

Good luck, it's worth doing, but will be a tough row....

MTV

Thanks for the input and ideas everyone. Just as I suspected, it is more involved that I wanted it to be. Worth it though. I'll start by getting ahold of the local SPA and see what they think.