SECTION 40A. Airport approach regulations by cities or towns

Any city, except Boston, and any town, may by ordinance or by-law adopt, and may administer and enforce, in the manner and upon the conditions hereinafter prescribed, approach regulations relative to approaches to publicly owned airports, applicable to areas within such city or town, in this section and sections forty B to forty I, inclusive, called airport approach regulations. Such regulations may divide any such area into sections and may within each section regulate and restrict the height to which structures and trees may thereafter be erected or allowed to grow. Any such regulations may from time to time be amended or repealed. Such regulations and amendments thereto shall be effective when approved by the commission and the attorney general and recorded as hereinafter provided. Such regulations or any amendments thereto shall as soon as may be after adoption and approval be recorded in the registry of deeds of each county and district in which any portion of the land to which such regulations apply is located, and notice that such regulations or amendments have been adopted shall be sent by mail to the owner of every parcel of land to any portion of which such regulations or amendments are applicable. For the purposes of this provision the person to whom the land was assessed in the last preceding annual tax levy shall be deemed to be the owner thereof, and the notice shall be addressed in the same manner as the notice of such tax, unless a different owner or a different address is known to be the correct one. Such notice shall also be given by publishing, in a newspaper of general circulation, if any, in each city and town in which any portion of the land subject to the regulations is located, a map of the area subject to the regulations, with sufficient explanatory matter to give the public and the owners of land reasonable notice of the adoption of the regulations or amendments, or by posting such map and explanatory matter in one or more public places in each such city and town.