"Newport News, Va., Airport Accelerates Expansion Plans"

Sunday, February 9, 2003

Newport News, Va., Airport Accelerates Expansion Plans
Newport News, Va.


YORK COUNTY, Va.--Set on 167 rolling acres just over the York County line
from Newport News/ Williamsburg International Airport, Kentucky Farms offers
scenic and remote horse trails leading to nearby parks and ponds. 

"You can ride for hours without ever needing to cross a highway," said
Newport News resident Penny Madden, who owns one of the farm's 94 horses. 

A little farther down Oriana Road lies a peaceful enclave of 27 houses. It's
a place where many residents have lived for 30 years and are now retired.
There, people are on a first-name basis with each other. 

"We have good neighbors," said Evelyn Ayers, 75, who has lived on Kentucky
Drive with her husband, Heber, since 1964. "And we don't have a lot of
traffic."

But the days for both the pastoral horse farm and the quiet neighborhood may
be numbered. 

Airport officials, citing a 37 percent increase in takeoffs and landings at
the airport over the past eight years, say they need to add a new runway
soon to prevent future delays. 

And they have recently ratcheted up efforts to do something about it by
accelerating airport expansion plans. The new tarmac, which could be in
operation by 2013, will likely cut right through the horse land and the
quiet homes. 

The Peninsula Airport Commission embarked on a conscious effort in recent
years to grow by keeping costs down for private general aviation planes --
in part by making sure that landing fees and hangar fees are low. 

The effort has worked. Although the airport still has relatively few flights
from commercial carriers, it has more total takeoffs and landings than
Norfolk International, Richmond International, and Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport in northern Virginia. 

Now, though, aviation gridlock is a looming problem. 

"Those horses will have to find a new home," said Jim Evans, the airport's
business development manager. 

To be sure, an airport expansion has been a possibility for more than 30
years, ever since the airport's master plan outlined it. 

But some say it's not quite in the public interest to get rid of such a
treasure trove of beautiful land right in the heart of the Peninsula. 

"I'm all for the city and progress, but I don't want it right here," said
Mary Neale, of Newport News, who has a horse at Kentucky Farms. "We don't
want this land taken away from our kids and our horses."

Since the horse farm is on airport-owned land, ending the farm's short-term
lease is all that is needed. As for the houses, they'd be taken over through
eminent domain, a practice that allows government entities like the airport
to take over private property if it's in the public interest. 

Ed Belford, 69, who has lived in a home on Kentucky Drive, off Oriana Road,
since 1963, said it would be "very lousy" if he had to move for a new
runway. "After 40 years, I'm finally getting to where I can stand it here,"
he quipped.

The man pushing for the new expansion, airport executive director Jim Smith,
said he has nothing against the residents. And, he said, he has nothing
against horses, either -- his wife and daughter have two horses and a
16-acre horse farm north of Williamsburg. 

"But if you look at the greatest good for the greatest number of people, the
runway wins," he said. 

Only in recent months have officials started moving seriously to turn the
idea into reality, asking for $2.4 million in federal money to update the
airport's master plan with a cost/benefit analysis and to conduct an
environmental study.

The new runway project, which would cost at least $36 million, would include
the cost of moving Oriana Road to make way for the new runway. 

>From about 160,000 operations in 1992, the airport's operations grew to
232,000 operations in 2002, a 45 percent increase over 10 years. The huge
spike has come not so much from new service from commercial airlines, but
from a large rise in flying by the military planes and general aviation
planes. 

With some base consolidations around the country, military flying --
especially by the U.S. Army -- has led to much of the increase, Smith said.
The airport does not charge the military for flying in and out of the
airport. 

And with the costs held down for general aviation planes, companies like
Smithfield Foods, Noland Co., W.M. Jordan Co. and others have planes at the
airport. That's not to mention all of the other regional businesses that fly
privately into the airport and the individual pilots who have planes there. 

"We're the Wal-Mart of airports in terms of value for price," Smith said. 

The number of general aviation operations in Newport News alone -- 144,000
-- were more than the total number of flights each at Richmond and Norfolk.
But although private general aviation planes make up 50 percent of all
airport flights, they bring in only 10 percent of the airport's operating
revenue. 

As it moves forward, the Newport News airport now has two choices: It can
cut back on its operations or keep them steady by raising prices on general
aviation planes. Or it can keep prices low and continue growing. 

But when the number of operations reaches the magic number of 292,000
annually -- which easily could happen in the next five to 10 years -- travel
delays at the airport will begin to rise dramatically, Smith said. And that
means that the cost of using the airport will rise, too. 

That is, unless a new runway is built. 

But the people who use the horse farm and who live in the neighborhood said
they'd hate to see their lives uprooted for a new runway. 

Steve Jensen, who runs Kentucky Farms, rents the 167 acres of land from the
airport for $3,000 a month. A tack shop is on the property, numerous
stables, barns, a farmhouse, fenced-in areas and access to the miles of
trails. Jensen has long known it was a possibility that he'd have to return
the land to the airport, but he had been hoping it wouldn't happen for
another 20 years or so. 

"I hate the thought of giving all this up," he said, as he tied a trailer to
his pickup on the property one morning recently. 

Afternoons, when children are off from school, are the busiest time for the
farm. More than a dozen people at any one time are riding, grooming or
otherwise tending to their horses. The horses, users say, have long since
gotten used to the planes flying overhead. 

"You just don't have the land anywhere else nearby to ride like you do
here," said Margaret Mendelsohn of Newport News, who's had horses at
Kentucky Farms for 18 years. "It's like heaven in the middle of suburbia, if
you ask me."

In the houses on Kentucky Drive, residents also say that when they moved in
30 years ago, they had heard that they were on property that could one day
become part of the airport. But they hadn't heard much about it since. 

It's an out-of-the way neighborhood, where the streets were paved only a few
years ago, and where everyone seems to have a backup generator for when the
power goes out. 

Joseph Johnson, 76, a retired Coast Guard radar operator who's lived on the
street since 1970, said he likes the fact that he's so close to Mary
Immaculate Hospital and that he's between Newport News and York County. He
doesn't have the energy to go somewhere else. "I have so much stuff I'd have
to move," he said. 

But Smith promised that the residents whose homes would be taken over would
be well-compensated. "People usually do very well in airport-related
relocations," he said.


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