First in a three part series on the Hollister Municipal
Airport
City council will be deciding between jet expansion or CDF
base
City council will be deciding between jet expansion or CDF base
City officials once again debated the possibility of expanding the Hollister Municipal Airport at a council meeting Dec. 17.
City officials have been talking about expanding the Hollister Municipal Airport for a long time, said Bill Gere, manager of the Hollister Municipal Airport.
“When I moved here in 1984, there was a sign right over there on Flynn Road that said, ‘airport industrial park coming next year,'” Gere said. “That sign is still there.”
Hollister officials have an historic opportunity to stimulate the local economy and create jobs, say proponents of expansion. Opponents urge caution.
At issue is a 20-acre parcel that is part of the airport’s property. Currently, the land is planted with hay, Gere said.
Staff from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) want to lease half the land for a new air attack base for fire fighting operations. A developer wants to lease the entire parcel and build a jet center.
The CDF has a lease at the airport for 3.2 acres, Gere said. They pay a little less than $18,000 per year, according to documents from the airport.
CDF would pay between $92,000 and $98,000 per year for a new lease, said Reno DiTullio, division chief for the San Benito-Monterey CDF unit. The rent would be tied to inflation, he said.
Clint Quilter, the city manager, CDF officials, and the Department of General Services, the federal agency that would need to approve the terms, have agreed to all the terms of a new lease, DiTullio said.
“We’re ready to go,” DiTullio said
The CDF could be using their new base by the summer of 2009, he said.
Nothing is final until a lease has been signed.
A jet center would benefit the entire community, Gere said.
ABVision, an investment company based in Saratoga, wants to lease the entire parcel and build a jet center, said Andrew Barnes, CEO of ABVision.
They would build and sell 16 hangars for multi-million dollar jets, and conduct an aircraft related business, according to a proposal. Over five years, the project would generate $250 million for the local economy, Barnes said.
“We bring jobs, high paying jobs, which it looks like Hollister needs,” Barnes said. “You look at downtown here, it looks like it’s died.”
If CDF gets half the land, the remainder would not be big enough for it to be worth building the jet center, Barnes said.
“If I can’t build at least a dozen hangars, I don’t want to do it,” Barnes said.
Logistically, the Hollister airport is the right place for the CDF to be, DiTullio said. It has a quick response time to other areas within their area of responsibility and enables them to protect an important watershed, he said.
Currently, the Hollister Municipal Airport is owned by the city. It is used for recreation, flight training, a skydiving operation, a WWII aircraft museum and the CDF air attack base.
“We have a large and diverse group of aviation users,” Gere said.
But the airport is underutilized, he said.
“There are no jets here,” he said. “There are a lot of people who are dying to bring a whole lot of jets here. And I think it’s a great idea.”
Gere agrees a jet center would help the economy
“I think that’s a really good strategy for economic development,” Gere said. “And I think the people who talk against that, I don’t think they have the best interests of Hollister at heart.”
CDF officials have been involved in off-again, on-again negotiations with the city for 10 years. The site should be leased to the CDF because the city council promised them the land 10 years ago, DiTullio said.
CDF needs the land for a new base, DiTullio said. Their facilities are more than 40 years old, he said.
“That’s archaic,” he said.
Gere agrees that their facilities are dilapidated and out of date. He disagrees that the best solution is for CDF to move.
The CDF base occupies 3.2 acres, Gere said. The new base would occupy 10 acres. Due to safety regulations CDF officials can only put buildings on about half of that, DiTullio said.
“My question to them is why does the CDF need to move,” Gere said.
Why do they need that piece of property? I’ve seen absolutely no evidence that they need to move.”
The new location would be better for the pilots, DiTullio said. At their current location, the pilots cannot see if any other aircraft are on the runway, or if any aircraft are coming in for a landing, he said.
At the new location they would be able to see if a plane is landing, DiTullio said.
CDF could lease two more acres at their current site, Gere said.
“That is a very good option,” he said, “and I have the maps to prove it. If I was the CDF, that’s what I’d want.”
CDF’s current location provides a quicker response time, Gere said. At their new location they would have to taxi farther to leave the airport.
The new base would include an aircraft maintenance hangar, a building for generators, a building for their tractor and a two-story operational building with barracks, showers, administrative offices, a ready room for pilots and a control tower, DiTullio said.
The decision that the city council makes will have a long-term impact on the future of the airport, said Gere and Barnes. If the CDF gets the land, the airport will never expand, they said.
“There’s a lot at stake here,” Barnes said. “If I don’t develop it, and someone else doesn’t develop it, then it’ll stay a small hobbyist airport.”
Airplane emmissions a concern
Attorney generals call for regulation of greenhouse gases from air travel
There is a growing consensus that airplanes are an inefficient form of transportation that produce a lot of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. If expansion at the Hollister Municipal Airport takes the form of a jet center, there would more of them in Hollister.
Currently the airport houses a mix of airplanes, including WWII fighter planes and private aircraft. A proposal from ABVision, an investment company based in Saratoga, proposes a jet center that could accommodate 30 jet aircraft, said Andrew Barnes, CEO of ABVision.
Those plans might be at odds with those of California Attorney General Jerry Brown.
On Dec. 5, Brown, along with the attorneys general from Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico and the District of Columbia petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emission from airplanes, according to a press release.
Any regulations would exempt existing aircraft, said Bill Gere, airport manager.
The older planes will be hard to get rid of because they last for so long, Gere said.
“The service life of an aircraft is 30 years,” Gere said. “The new ones are so expensive that you just have to take care of the old ones and keep them in good shape.”
Karen Schkolnick is a spokesperson for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, a state regulatory agency.
“Airplanes are generally an inefficient mode of transportation,” Schkolnick said. “They’re good at moving people very quickly, but the amount of pollution per mile is very high.”
The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that emissions from domestic aircraft will rise 60 percent by 2025.
Ed Kendig is the compliance division manager for the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District, a state regulatory agency.
“Aircraft engines are utterly unregulated by emission concerns, unlike cars,” he said. “There has never been emission control or concern about emission technology in aircraft, so far.”
Also petitioning the EPA was the state of Pennsylvania, through its Department of Environmental Protection, the City of New York through its Corporation Counsel, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, an air quality management district in California.
In coordination, four environmental groups, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, Oceana and the Center for Biological diversity, also petitioned the EPA.
The EPA has 180 days to respond to the petition, said Brian Smith, press secretary for Earthjustice. Once the 180 day period ends, litigation can begin.
Lawyers from Earthjustice are prepared to sue the EPA, if litigation becomes necessary, Smith said.
