Plan hits headwind
Some Milton residents don’t want terminal built or land purchased
Some Milton residents nervous about expansion at Saratoga County Airport.
An effort to enlarge Saratoga County Airport’s runway protection zones and seek state grant funding to build a terminal with a café and other amenities is already facing opposition.
Neighbors fear the now-preliminary plans to increase the buffer zone between homes and runways is a prelude to eventual airport expansion, a threat to dozens of homes surrounding the countyowned facility.
“We are very against it,” Sharon Licata, who lives on Ichabod Lane said. “We will fight it as long as we can. If they expand the airport, we will be staring at the end of a runway.”
Chad Cooke, the county’s commissioner of public works, emphasized the plan to buy two properties, one with a house and pool at 473 Rowland St. and an estimated 20 acres of undeveloped property
By Wendy Liberatore
Milton
on Stone Church Road, is not a plan to increase the runway or the airport. Instead, Cooke said, it is a plan to follow FAA guidance, which encourages airports to acquire land in the runway protection zones.
“In both instances, the purpose of acquisition is to facilitate the county’s ability to maintain vegetation within the (runway protection zone),” Cooke said in an email to the Times Union. “There are currently no active plans to increase the length of any runway at the airport.”
In a June 1 meeting with the county’s Building and Grounds Committee, he also noted that the FAA typically provides between 90 to 95 percent reimbursement in grant funding if the county does purchase property within the runway protection zone.
However, the consideration of the purchase comes at the same time the county is looking to apply for $5 million in funds from the state’s Upstate Airport Economic Development and Revitalization competition. That money, if won, said Saratoga Springs Supervisor and building and grounds committee Chair Matthew Veitch, would update the circa 1960s metal hangar and build a new terminal with the aforementioned amenities.
“One thing that would be great for our airport is something to showcase our county, advertise economic development and business opportunities,” Veitch told Saratoga Springs City Council last week. “(It could) potentially have a business center, a Taste of New York, a café, something basically to welcome travelers coming to the airport.”
Veitch also said he envisioned developing passive trails for public use in the larger parcel.
Milton Supervisor Benny Zlotnick said he is opposed to the county buying more neighboring lands and building a terminal.
“The airport is taking up enough space,” Zlotnick said. “I’m not even in favor of the grant. We don’t have that much traffic or those kinds of individuals who need to have a nice place to stay while they are waiting for a connecting flight. We don’t have connecting flights. These are individuals who fly in for a business meetings, for SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center) or the track (Saratoga Race Course) and then they hop back on the plane and go. If they want to put on a new roof or siding on the building that’s great. But I’m not in favor of a building with lounges. I don’t want to see a terminal.”
Moreover, he said that the 20-plus acres, part of an 85-acre parcel on Stone Church Road, is also being considered by a developer who wants to build townhouses.
John Olenik, a Milton resident who also lives near the airport, said he’s not opposed to upgrades, but is suspicious of land purchases.
“I built my house here in 1973 with the full knowledge that the airport was my neighbor, but with the understanding that this was, and would always be, a small regional airport used for recreational flying, with the exception of
August when the small private jets came in for the racing season,” Olenik said. “Some years back, they bought houses adjacent to the runway on Legend Lane and moved them elsewhere, and subsequently cut down many trees, and expanded the runway, all in the name of safety . ... Now they are talking about more upgrades, and the neighbors affected are again legitimately worried about whether their homes will be taken under eminent domain.”
Still, members of the county’s buildings and grounds committee on June 1 agreed to look at the prospect of purchasing the two parcels of land and applying for the grant. At that meeting, Veitch also tried to assure Zlotnick that this is not an airport expansion plan.
“It’s really just to acquire property in the runway protection zone to allow us to have that more clear, restricted use area for the planes coming into the airport,” Veitch said. However, he also said he can’t predict the airport’s future, but that the county is now only working “in the current footprint.”
Licata, who headed up a fight to stop an airport expansion in 2014, doesn’t believe it.
“They say they are buying the properties for safety,” Licata said. “We know in our hearts, that’s not true. If you think spending $5 million on the terminal so someone buys a $5 coffee is going to help us, then I have a piece of land to sell you in Florida.”