Recently, an anonymous letter was sent to Stafford Regional Airport Authority chairman Henry Scharpenberg regarding development of the airport. That letter was reproduced in the Nov. 21 edition of the Stafford County Sun.
Cord Sterling, R-Rock Hill, of the county Board of Supervisors, said in a telephone interview that he wrote the letter and emailed it to School Board members.
The letter detailed the supervisor’s concerns over expansion of the airport, safety issues, a new traffic route, donations made to board members and the long-term impact on home values. He also criticized the management of the Airport Authority
“If this were a private trade company and the CEO were given all these assets they would have been fired for poor performance,” Sterling said.
“We are still subsidizing them [the airport] heavily. I do think they need to put up and start economically developing or quit coming to us for money,” Sterling said, adding that he hasn’t seen much economic development activity from the airport over the past 10 years. “It appears to have become a private flying club.”
Safety
Regarding safety issues, Sterling speaks of a “northern standard traffic pattern that will take it [the flight path] over the Colonial Forge High School and existing neighborhoods.”
According to airport manager Ed Wallis and Scharpenberg, the northern route is already in place and has been since the airport opened.
At present, the route is not in use due to “bird impact” issues. Two cells at the nearby county landfill attract flocks of birds, Scharpenberg said. As a plane approaches the airport the birds may interfere with the craft, becoming safety issues for pilot, passengers and those below.
Some airports employ companies that specialize in keeping birds away from airport operations, Scharpenberg said. Once the cells are filled and covered, the birds will go elsewhere.
Before that route can be used again, the airport must get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The northern route will take planes over the Colonial Forge subdivision, but only “nick” the edge of the high school property, Scharpenberg has said.
Sterling said he does not feel the route is foolproof, however. “Pilots are on one side or the other most of the time,” he said.
Airport manager Ed Wallis has said that pilots will follow the path as delineated in the accompanying image. Deviation from that path is minimal.
Sterling disagrees and feels that sooner or later, a pilot will fly over the school.
“It’s not like a railroad track,” he said, speaking of the route. The southern route, he says, goes over neither schools nor subdivisions.
Runway extension
Sterling said he would like to see the runway extension stopped until the airport can prove it can produce the business it was designed for and it needs to be accountable for the funds the county has given it to operate.
The runway extension is for the benefit of jets, Scharpenberg and Wallis said. A jet may land at the airport but will not take off with a full load of fuel due to gross weight issues. By extending the runway, the fully fueled jets will be able to take off.
Having the capacity to handle these craft increases the airport’s ability to attract clients, Scharpenberg said.
“Stafford airport continues to develop the infrastructure necessary to attract the corporate clientele we need in Stafford County, at comparatively minimal cost to the taxpayer,” wrote county Supervisor Paul Milde, R-Aquia. “Completion of the runway extension will finally allow this asset to realize its true economic potential for our economy.”
Present economic returns
“What are we going to see for the cost of it? What does the county get? Where are the businesses the airport has brought in? We’re not getting industry,” Sterling said.
According to a report prepared by several consulting firms at the behest of the Virginia Department of Aviation in 2011, every $1 spent at a Virginia airport contributes an additional $3.48 in economic activity for Virginia.
According to the same report, 107 jobs have been generated by the airport’s presence, seven being full time positions at the airport. Other potential growth listed in the report includes agricultural spraying, emergency medical aviation, flight training, traffic news and reporting, staging area for community events, gateway for VIPs, public charters, freight/cargo and recreational flying and parachuting.
Sterling questions the reliability of that report, he said. Many of those jobs, he said, would be in the county whether the Stafford Regional Airport existed or not. The results of that report are speculative at best, he said. Those jobs are created, he said, in the general area of the airport.
“Show me names of the people in those jobs and I’ll believe it,” he said.
If the Stafford Airport were to close, medical aviation would just move to nearby Shannon Airport and the jobs it afforded wouldn’t just disappear, he said.
Fuel is the primary commodity that the airport can sell, Wallis said. Jet fuel is sold primarily to corporate and military/government entities and AVgas is for piston aircraft.
The airport sold 208,216 gallons of jet fuel and 53,553 gallons of AVgas in FY 2014, Wallis said. Of the AVgas, he estimates that 25 percent was for corporate use.
Aviation Adventures, Apex Motorcycles and aircraft owners are another source of revenue since they rent space at the facility.
The county’s investment
Other money from the county was an interest free $133,000 moral obligation loan in 2008, Wallis said. The loan is paid through the 55 percent of fees obtained from the leasing of the second corporate hangar. The loan was to keep the airport from defaulting, Scharpenberg and Wallis said.
In April 2009 personal property tax was reduced on aircraft, and hangars filled up, creating more revenue by the airport, Wallis said.
The county loaned $1.4 million, interest and term free, in summer of 2012 to help build the new terminal. The remainder of the cost was covered by a grant from the Virginia Department of Aviation. The airport repays that loan with 55 percent of their corporate rents. Being term free, the airport may take as long as it needs to repay it.
Of the $1,100 monthly rent paid by Aviation Adventures, $605 goes to paying the loan off, Wallis said.
An annual subsidy of $150,000 is paid to the airport, with 57 percent coming from Stafford, the remainder from Prince William County and Fredericksburg. Since the airport’s opening the subsidy was lowered from $200,000 as the airport increased its revenues, Scharpenberg said.
Development
Recently, the Engineering Groupe of Woodbridge was turned down in their request to build Oakenwold, a planned traditional neighborhood development, on 232 acres in the airport corridor.
The developer met with opposition from the Authority and was turned down by a 5-1 vote of the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 16.
George Washington Village is a proposed residential development in that area and the Authority is concerned about the proximity of the development to the airport.
“Are we saying they can’t build anywhere? No. We are saying wait for the land use guidelines [to be] accepted before any plan is put into place,” Scharpenberg said.
A proposal by the Airport Authority and the county Planning Commission delineating use of land in the Centreport Parkway corridor was presented to the public Nov. 6 at the airport. Mike Zuraf, a principal planner for the county, stated the need for such guidelines was created when the land became of interest to developers. The land was included as one of several urban development areas created by an updated comprehensive plan in 2010.
“Even with those guidelines, the present comp plan does not call for residential housing in that area,” Scharpenberg said.
In a draft titled “Compatible Land Use Study,” developed by Talbert and Bright Inc. in May 2014, the following developments were deemed incompatible in an airport overlay district:
• Urban residential-high density
• Life Care/retirement community
• Urban development
• Planned traditional neighborhood development
The following were described as potentially compatible zoning classifications:
• Suburban residential
• Urban residential-medium density
• Manufactured homes
• Urban commercial
• Office
• Heritage interpretation
• Suburban commercial
• Recreational business campus
• Recreational business campus
• Planned development 1 and 2
Compatible zoning classifications were:
• Agricultural
• Rural residential
• Convenience commercial
• Light industrial
• Heavy industrial
• Rural industrial
Sterling cast one of the votes for the denial of the Oakenwold development.
“It was in the path of the southern route,” he said. The northern route takes planes over the Colonial Forge subdivision. So what’s the difference regarding safety issues, he said.
“I’m bewildered by that,” Sterling said. “I don’t think the two are compatible.”
Source: http://www.staffordcountysun.com
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