New Philadelphia Airport Master Plan Meeting Raises Questions

Last Wednesday, May 19, 2010, the Public Works Committee of the New Philadelphia City Council held a meeting concerning the relocation of the runway at Clever Field, the city’s airport. Estimates of the number of citizens attending ranged from 120 to 200 depending on who was doing the counting. This is one issue which has citizen attention.

There were a number of misconceptions presented at the meeting, concerning not only the airport, but the Master Plan as well. The Master Plan contains eight alternatives to lengthen the runway, the one most favored, Alternative Four, or Option Four as it was referred to at the meeting.

Remember this about acceptance of the Master Plan. The comment that was made on a number of occasions last Wednesday by the speakers representing the Airport and Administration, that acceptance of the Plan is really accepting only Alternative Four, the other alternatives will not be considered, is a total fabrication.

If City Council accepts the Master Plan, it accepts everything in the master plan without exception. When a piece of legislation is passed by Council and approved by the Mayor, every part, item, comma and period, becomes law. Acceptance of the Master Plan would require the taking of private property under the process of eminent domain. This is a process by which private property is taken by the government, in this case New Philadelphia, no matter what the wishes of the property owner are. The amount of property to be seized will be determined by the City based on what is needed for the project. If the property owner does not wish to relinquish his land, he has no choice. When taken by eminent domain, there is no way to fight it, it is a done deal, like it or not. The only recourse the property owner has is to argue the price being offered in a court of law, but no matter what that outcome is, the property owner will lose his property.

The Master Plan will have an impact on the East Avenue Cemetery. Not only will some of the cemetery land be taken, but Delaware Avenue will be closed, make no mistake about it. Schoenbrunn Village property would be taken, an action which would also seize the access road to the historic site. The closing of Delaware Avenue will cause extreme hardship to the residents in the area. In excess of 36 homes and businesses and 42 acres of land will be taken should Alternative Four be adopted.

It was said also that if the Master Plan is not accepted the FAA will downgrade the ability of the airport to handle aircraft currently using it. It was stated that the FAA will require a shortening of the runway as it does not meet the requirements of aircraft landing there. This is not true. According to a contact in the FAA, there are no plans to downgrade the rating of Harry Clever Field. While upgrading the rating of the airport to handle larger aircraft will not be possible without increasing the runway length, there is no penalty to keep it the same. While there are concerns about the airport configuration, they are not sufficient to warrant a shutdown. Other airports have similar problems, Midway Airport in Chicago, for example, where approach paths are all over residential areas, and the runway safety areas are more critical than those in New Philadelphia. The problem at Midway is similar to the concern in New Philadelphia, in that the runway safety area is insufficient. The problem at Midway was resolved without the seizure of private property.

Among things not discussed last Wednesday night was why lengthening the runway is of such high importance. Reasons given failed to make an overwhelming argument.

One was that a longer runway would bring more business to New Philadelphia. In like fashion, an industrial park should bring more business to New Philadelphia. Obviously, this is not the case. The city alone put over a million two hundred thousand dollars into the High Tech Park, and it is still lacking meaningful growth.

Another was that to get to air transportation one must travel to Akron. So what? The trip to Akron/Canton Airport is 35 minutes from New Philadelphia. The trip in Chicago to O’Hare from downtown is thirty to forty-five minutes on a good day and nobody complains. In the Cleveland area the travel time is about the same.

Kent State wants an airport here, so said the Mayor, because it wants to teach programs connected to aviation. They have one up at Kent and it would be nice to have one here, at the expense of New Philadelphia, of course. To make this work here we need a longer runway. Our runway is 3,950 feet long, 100 feet wide, apparently not big enough. The runway at the Kent Airport is 4,000 feet long, 60 feet wide. Well, I guess our is shorter, but we are wider. Somehow, Kent Airport survives. Perhaps the Mayor and Airport Commission should consult with them.

So what is the need for a longer runway? None were mentioned. But of the corporations who use Clever Field, five, I believe, only one has voiced a desire for a longer runway to the Airport Commission or City Council. That desire was not because of a current problem, rather the corporation’s desire to purchase a larger, more powerful jet.

Citizen concerns were many, and ranged from property to be taken by eminent domain, closure of roads, decrease in property values, increased noise, destruction of Schoenbrunn Village properties, and the loss of family homes, some of which have been in families for a hundred years or more.

The price of this project? Who knows. Ten to twenty million dollars is a possibility, which puts the city’s share between $500,000 and a million. That’s a lot of money for the city to commit to for a project which is utilized by less than one half of one percent of the population.

The meeting is best summed up by a question from one of the audience who asked, “What’s this going to do for the people of New Philadelphia”. There was no answer.