Community members both for and against closing Boulder’s municipal airport are voicing concerns about a long-awaited financial analysis on the airport’s future that city staffers released last week.
Specifically, they have questioned and criticized city staffers’ proposal that the airport should open itself up to further development to help fund the airport over the next two decades, regardless of whether or not the airport will eventually close. People on both sides of the airport debate say that kind of development is undesirable and possibly unnecessary for the city.
The feedback comes as community debate rages on about what the city should do with its 96-year-old airport. Housing advocates see an unparalleled opportunity to close the airport and turn the nearly 180 acres of land it sits on into badly-needed housing, and they have advanced two ballot measures for this fall to accomplish these goals. Nearby residents have also complained of excessive airport noise and potential lead contamination from the leaded fuel still used in airplanes.
However, there’s also a vocal contingent of community members — many of them pilots and aviation enthusiasts — who say the airport is an economic engine for the city, creating jobs and bringing in revenue, as well as an invaluable resource for educating future pilots. Groups such as the Boulder Chamber have opposed closing the airport, with the Chamber touting the airport’s “significant economic vitality, transportation, and public safety benefits” as reasons to keep it open.
Additionally, airport supporters have suggested it would be legally and financially impractical for the city to close the airport. Currently, Boulder is locked in a contract with the Federal Aviation Administration to keep the airport operating for at least the next 18 years, because the city has accepted FAA grant funding. The FAA wrote a letter to the city in March reiterating that Boulder is obligated to keep the airport open for now, and the city’s federal obligations stay in effect in perpetuity “unless released by the federal government.”
Former Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett, writing on behalf of the Boulder Airport Association, also opined in a letter to city officials that “it would be extremely expensive and very difficult, if not impossible, to decommission the airport” based on the FAA’s stated position.
Neighborhood group voices alarm
The financial analysis looked at two broad scenarios for the future. One of those scenarios involved Boulder’s airport staying open indefinitely, and the other envisioned the city operating the airport only until 2041, when Boulder’s current contract with the FAA is up is up, and then decommissioning it.
But the two scenarios have a few things in common. Both scenarios assume the airport will stay open for at least the next 18 years. And although the analysis concluded keeping the airport open long-term could be more expensive for the city than preparing to close it, it also found that in either scenario, the city would need to come up with the funds to keep the airport running until 2041, when decommissioning could become legally feasible if the city does not accept any further grant funding from the FAA.
City staffers promoted the strategy of offering long-term leases for private developers on the airport land to bring in revenue. They operated under the assumption that private parties could use all available undeveloped airport property for developing commercial hangars, but both pro- and anti-airport community members and groups have found this assumption problematic, albeit for slightly different reasons.
Members of the Airport Neighborhood Campaign, the group behind this fall’s ballot measures to close the airport and turn the area into a neighborhood, said in a statement they are “alarmed” that both of the city’s proposed financial scenarios envision growth and expansion of the Boulder airport.
For one, allowing new hangars and commercial buildings could exacerbate noise, lead pollution and carbon emissions at the airport, they argued. The group also said it would be “financially unsound” and “extremely wasteful” to let private investors develop the airport land over the next 18 years, only for the airport to close in 2041. At that time, the city would have to tear down the buildings and pay back investors for the unamortized portions of their investments.
Instead, the group would prefer to see city staff devise a new scenario for the airport that “does not involve growth in airport facilities, operations, impacts, or cost burden to the city in the event of closure,” according to the statement. Although the lack of grant funding from the FAA in this scenario would pose a challenge, other sources of funding, such as user fees, have been suggested.
The group also urged the council to take public input on the airport’s future and not make a decision on it until voters weigh in in November. There was no opportunity for public comment at the City Council meeting Thursday night, where council members discussed the airport.
Soaring Society backs status quo
Pro-airport groups have also taken issue with the financial scenarios city staffers have proposed for the airport. In a letter to council members earlier this week, Soaring Society of Boulder President Clemens Ceipek wrote that both scenarios would be worse for the community than the current status quo.
Ceipek said allowing more development at the airport would worsen noise and environmental impacts and that it shouldn’t be necessary because, to this point, the airport has been “self-sustaining” and has not required subsidies from the city’s general fund.
In the past, the city could bank on using FAA grant funding to help cover airport expenses, and if the airport stays open, Boulder can continue accepting that kind of funding in the future.
Instead, Ceipek implored the city to investigate a third scenario by which the city would continue to support the airport without drawing from the general fund, modernize airport infrastructure in a “responsible fashion” that doesn’t create a budget deficit and prioritize investments that could reduce noise and environmental impacts at the airport.
Similarly, in a Hotline email, Councilmember Matthew Benjamin questioned the assumption that the city would need to increase airport spending if the airport were to be kept open. He asked city staffers to look at a scenario where the airport stays operational but at a similar operational and investment level to the status quo.
In response to Benjamin’s email, Transportation and Mobility Department Director Natalie Stiffler wrote that in the first scenario, where the airport would stay open indefinitely, city staffers had assumed the city would invest in improving the airport and maintaining it for long-term use in line with the 2007 Airport Master Plan. And in the second, staffers assumed the city would only invest in the airport at the minimum level to meet FAA requirements, but that the city would stop taking any further FAA grant funding.
But if the city moves forward with keeping the airport open indefinitely, Stiffler said, the city would have “flexibility in timing” to align its airport investments with the newest iteration of the Airport Master Plan.
The staff financial analysis of the airport raised more questions than it answered about what closing the airport — or keeping it open — could ultimately cost the city. Boulder’s City Council on Thursday evening discussed the airport, but delayed a decision, with some council members saying they needed much more information from city staff.
Stiffler wrote in her Hotline email that the staff’s financial analysis specifically looked at the cost of continuing to operate the airport over the next two decades with an eye toward “potential lawful closure.” Staffers have started to outline what decommissioning the airport in 2041 might look like, suggesting the city could net hundreds of millions of dollars — 2041 dollars, that is — after closing the facilities, reimbursing the FAA for land bought with FAA grant funding and selling all the city-owned land to private developers.
However, staffers have not yet factored in other considerations, such as the cost of environmental remediation on the land (which would likely be needed) or of preparing the land for development. Stiffler acknowledged that staffers need to do “further study” on these costs, but they believe remediation costs would be less than the $7 million being spent on remediation at the Chandler Airport in Chandler, Ariz.
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