By Harold Lassers
The Cherry Capital Airport authority would like support from the Grand Traverse Board of Commissioners for a $60 million bond to implement a $120-million gate expansion at our airport. This plan does not consider the problems we already have with the airport conflicting with housing in Traverse City and Garfield Township. Our airport is not in the right location for future growth.
In April, the Michigan Aeronautics Commission gave a report to the board of commissioners showing that we have housing and occupancy levels in airport hazard zones that appear to already exceed the limits set by the Michigan Airport Zoning Act.
The hazard-zone map they presented shows the areas where housing should be restricted – with zones 1 and 2 limited to zero to five people per acre, zone 3 limited to 25 people per acre and zone 4 limited to 40 people per acre. Risk increases with number of flights and occupancy density.
We already have new and multi-family housing in these areas. It was suggested that we could form an airport zoning board and grant variances to these standards. That might be a short-term necessity, but it is not the right future path.
We also need to evaluate the claimed need for this expansion at this time. Many of us have had the experience of sitting on the tarmac waiting for a gate at TVC, but I have yet to see all gates in use.
The problem is that the airport does not have the staff, especially for the late-flight arrivals, to use the gates they already have. We have four jetway gates and two grade-level gates. Even in our busiest season, our load is less than five aircraft turnarounds per day per jetway gate. This is a modest gate use and allows adequate headroom for adding more flights. Our current problem is that we are not adequately staffing the gates we have, and adding gates will not solve that problem.
It is time to limit investment in the current airport. It has been an excellent facility in the past, but it is not the right location for future growth of the community.
It is time to start finding a location for a new airport that can grow with the community with safety and proper land usage.
This expansion is in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
About the author: Harold Lassers is a retired engineer living in Williamsburg. He has a bachelor’s of science in engineering from University of Michigan and a master’s in computer science from Northwestern University. He managed systems engineering teams at Bell Laboratories and consulted for Juniper Networks and Cisco Systems.