Nathaniel Pyron on Explosives Safety Arcs and Munitions Storage Siting

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The Sky Is Zoned Too: What Special-Use Airspace Means for Base Master Planning

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By Nathaniel Pyron Every planner knows a parcel has a zoning district. Fewer civilians realize the sky above it has one too. I'm Nathaniel Pyron, a military urban planner specializing in military master planning with an airport and airfield focus, and the "Airspace" half of my job title gets questions at every conference I attend. So here's the plain-English version: the military doesn't just plan the ground inside the fence line. It has to plan the air above it — and the two plans are inseparable. The Federal Aviation Administration calls it Special Use Airspace, or SUA: defined volumes of sky where military activities must be confined, and where nonparticipating aircraft face limitations. There are seven types: Prohibited Areas, Restricted Areas, Military Operations Areas (MOAs), Warning Areas, Alert Areas, Controlled Firing Areas, and National Security Areas. Two of them — Prohibited and Restricted — are regulatory airspace created through formal rulemaking;...
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The 15-Minute Base: Bringing Walkable-City Thinking to Military Installations

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A compact, walkable military installation town center — the 15-minute base concept. Field notes I’m Nathaniel Pyron, a military urban planner specializing in military master planning with an airport and airfield focus. Most of my work comes down to one question: how does the layout of a place shape the lives of the people who depend on it? Lately, I’ve been applying a civilian planning idea — the 15-minute city — to a question the military has been wrestling with for years: why do so many of our installations feel less like communities and more like office parks you happen to sleep on? The 15-minute city, briefly The concept was formalized in 2016 by urbanist Carlos Moreno, and its premise is disarmingly simple: everything a person needs day to day — home, work, food, health care, school, a place to gather — should be reachable within 15 minutes on foot or by bike. It rests on four principles: proximity, diversity of uses, density, and digital services that reduce unnecessary trips....
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AICUZ, Explained: What Can Be Built Near a Military Runway

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Aerial view of a military airfield with AICUZ clear zones and accident potential zones overlaid — the compatible land use map around the runway.   Field notes I'm Nathaniel Pyron, a military urban planner specializing in military master planning with an airport and airfield focus. Every airfield I've worked on — most recently as a community planner with the United States Marine Corps at Camp Blaz and in Darwin, Australia — has something a civilian airport usually doesn't: a second map laid over the first. The first map shows runways, taxiways, and hangars. The second one shows where you can and can't build — and it starts the moment you leave the pavement. That second map comes from the Air Installations Compatible Use Zone program, AICUZ. If you live or plan near a military airfield, it's the most important planning document you've never read. Here's what it says, and why it works. A program built to keep neighbors and missions safe The Department of De...
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