Reid-Hillview Airport’s days may be numbered
Santa Clara County’s 3-2 vote calls for opportunity to use property for other purposes
SAN JOSE » Santa Clara County supervisors took a major step Tuesday that could lead to eventual closure of Reid-Hillview Airport, a move many residents who live near the airport have long wished for.
By declining to accept new federal grants to help operate Reid-Hillview, the board opened the door to letting the airport property be used for other purposes.
The 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Joseph Simitian and Mike Wasserman dissenting, calls for the county to explore moving aviation operations from Reid-Hillview to the San Martin Airport and asks the Federal Aviation Administration to lift its restrictions on use of the airport property when they expire in 2031.
Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who made the motion to pass up the federal grant funding, said it would be irresponsible for the board to lock up the property as an airport for another 20 years.
“If we accept FAA grants for Reid-Hillview Airport, we will be committing our successors to operate it through 2031 without the kind of planning that is necessary,” Chavez said. “No one knows what the market will require in 2031.”
But Wasserman took a different view, saying that although the county is committed to affordable housing, the airport is an important public asset.
“The idea to me of closing a public benefit that will be needed when the next fire occurs, natural disaster, whatever, doesn’t make any sense,” Wasserman said. “Because once you’ve closed an airport you can’t it. We have places to build housing, we don’t have places to build airports.”
Nearly 70 people filled the board room Tuesday to comment on the issue, including East San Jose residents, local school officials, pilots and students at San Jose State University’s aviation program.
The 180-acre airport was purchased by the county in 1961, and since then has seen the neighborhoods that surround it grow increasingly dense with homes, schools and commercial development.
Discussion about closing the airport — fueled by concerns about plane crashes, airborne lead exposure, noise and, most recently, the need for new affordable housing — has been brewing for nearly 40 years.
“This represents a great opportunity to do something for the community that for a long time has felt isolated from this airport, but has had
to bear the brunt of the pollution and noise nearby,” Sachin Radhakrishnan, an aide of San Jose Councilwoman Magdalena Carrasco, told the board. “Closing the airport will open up the possibility of not only housing but vital community facilities.”
Those who want to shutter the airport said its continued operation has prioritized the needs of a few over those of the East San Jose neighborhoods, which have high rates of poverty and children with elevated levels of lead in their blood.
They also point to the danger of plane crashes and other accidents; last November, a small plane from Reid Hillview crashed into a home just outside of the airport, injuring the three plane passengers. No one in the home or on the ground was hurt
But airport backers say Reid-Hillview is a valuable community resource that serves as a home base to San Jose State University’s aviation program and houses Cal Fire operations and the Civil Air Patrol, which help provide disaster relief during emergencies.
Pilots, flight schools and San Jose State University aviation students spoke on behalf of keeping the airport open, calling it an important regional center and public asset.
“A lot of us thought about going to Emery-Riddle or Purdue, but it’s too expensive,” said Tyler Hernandez, a senior at San Jose State’s aviation program, citing two top-ranked aviation schools. Closing the airport would “not kill our dreams, it will kill our career.”
Chavez’s motion included reaching out to the university regarding relocating the school’s activities to San Martin Airport, which is 25 miles from the school’s main campus.
Walt Gyger, who owns Trade Winds Aviation, a flight school based out of the airport, said relocating to San Martin is not a viable option for his business, which employs about 30 people.
“Consolidation at San Martin is not an option for us — it will destroy our business,” Gyger said.
Although leases for businesses that operate at the airport expire in 2021, current grant obligations require Reid-Hillview to remain an airport until at least 2031.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the agency considers requests for airport closures on a “case by case basis” and the agency would need to examine all of the airport’s contractual and grant obligations before deciding whether to allow other uses of the property.
In the meantime, the county is facing nearly $12 million in maintenance projects
it needs to fund. It previously drew $3 million from the general fund to repave runways.
County CEO Jeffrey Smith said the airport’s operations are not financially sustainable.
“You have at least 12 million in capital improvements that are needed, six million which has to be repaid, another six million dollars of long term debt already incurred…that’s 13 times the revenue that’s generated currently,” Smith said. “You will not be able to make that pencil out in the long run.”
Sustaining the airport even through its eventual closure could be a challenge, Smith said.
Former supervisor Blanca Alvarado, who has wanted to close the airport for almost four decades, said it’s time for it to change along with the surrounding neighborhoods.
“You have to remember, for more than 40 years, the aviation community has occupied 180 acres of countyowned land,” Alvarado told supervisors. “Now is our time for a change.”
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