Carson airport officials wants better public understanding before approving master plan

Perceived public misconceptions about the new master plan for the Carson City Airport led airport officials Thursday to delay approving the plan calling for a realigned runway.

For more than two hours, Carson City Airport Authority members listened to people living near the airport share fears that the master plan would lead to condemnation of homes and efforts to upgrade the airport for larger aircraft.

The authority wanted to forward the master plan Thursday to the Carson City Regional Planning Commission for the next approval before the Carson City Board of Supervisors gives the plan final approval.

But after hearing a room of 30 residents bring up concerns that missed the intent of the master plan, authority chairman David Corrao convinced other authority members to delay a decision on the plan to allow for better public education.

"I'm in no hurry tonight to pass it along to planning,'' Corrao said. "We are still going back and forth with what our perceived intent is and what we intend to do. We need more education of what our process is. We have an education process that is still sorely lacking with the public."

The authority asked to have simplified explanations and illustrations of the two proposed runway designs prepared for the public as soon as possible.

The authority several months ago approved a design for a new runway that would shift the east end of Runway 9-27 about 80 feet, or 3 degrees, to the north and extend it from 5,900 feet to 6,100 feet.

This alternative, one of six, required no home condemnations but other alternatives that were dismissed would have forced property owners to sell their homes. These were all dismissed outright nearly a year ago.

But even this weekend an anonymous flyer was circulated in the airport neighborhoods urging people to attend the airport authority meeting because their homes may be condemned.

The whole issue of a new runway arose because the existing runway has deteriorated so much that it can not be adequately repaired for the long term.

The runway must move, either parallel or skewed, because the taxiway and runway are too close together to meet modern safety standards. There is no room on airport property to move the taxiway 50 feet farther from the present runway.

The runway also needs another 200 feet in length to meet current Federal Aviation Administration standards for its present classification as a B-2 airport. The authority chose the skewed design because that leaves open the option to upgrade the airport in the future.