Concord Journal
Thursday, September 18, 2003

New hangars may be in the works at Hanscom Field

By Barbara Forster / Correspondent

More construction is the future for Hanscom Field. Massport announced the news at the Tuesday, Sept. 16 meeting of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission.

Massport reported Liberty Mutual submitted a proposal to change Hangar One into a hangar/office combo; approximately 30,000 square feet of hangar space and another 10,000 to 12,000 square feet for offices.

Liberty Mutual, which will tear down the building to make way for a new facility, took on the project after Jet Aviation declined to act on its "right of first refusal."

Whether the company needs to do any environmental studies is an unanswered question. Julian Bussgang of Lexington stated that environmental regulations call for such actions when transfers of land are made. According to Bussgang, "the regulation describes a transfer of land as including leases."

Liberty Mutual already has a lease with Massport, but the new venture involves a different property.

Massport also announced plans to issue two Requests for Proposals this fall. One is for the MIT's 40,000-square-foot hangar. The goal is to create a
40,000- to 60,000-square-foot corporate hangar that will also accommodate the field's flight schools.

Another proposal is for approximately 20,000 square feet of hangar space at the Pine Hill site.

Both sites are within Concord town limits and would be accessed via Virginia Road, also in Concord.

Massport and the town of Bedford are joining forces to defeat a 40B housing project proposed for the town. Richard Walsh of Massport reported that the agency will be at the Bedford Board of Appeals on Sept. 25 to oppose a 258-unit project which would abut Massport property just off Concord Road. Although the housing development would not be at the end of either runway, Walsh added, "They (the residents) will know there's an airport there."

Massport argues the site is not suitable for housing.

-- Housekeeping

According to HFAC Chairman Peter Enrich of Lexington, the 16-member commission is back on track, at least in terms of organization. Over the summer the four town Boards of Selectmen, in keeping with the terms of the legislation that created the commission, approved and confirmed 12 of the members and their terms of office. Each of the four boards appoints one member to represent the town; the rest of the members who represent various community interests including aviation must also receive a stamp of approval from the four boards.

Enrich said over the years, that process was less than firm. Establishing stricter order is part of an ongoing effort that began about four years ago when the selectmen who represent their towns on the Hanscom Area Towns Committee decided to do the same on HFAC. Previously the reps were not selectmen.

The change, explained Enrich, occurred because the selectmen wanted to "raise the profile of HFAC." On a more practical level, they also wanted to sort out each group's responsibilities and improve communications between them.

However, in a mini-turn-around, Enrich, who is no longer a selectman in Lexington, is serving as chairman for another year. The "chairman" usually rotates among the communities, but the schedule was disrupted when Sheldon Moll of Bedford served as chair of HATS for two years; this group follows a similar rotation pattern.

-- How busy is the air field?

This past summer, activity at Hanscom was down, sort of. In 2003, the total number of aircraft operations between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. dropped 6.4 percent in June, 6.3 percent in July and 12.9 percent in August as compared to last year. The reason: less activity among all non-jet aircraft.

But jet activity increased 1.3 percent in June, 9.6 percent in July, and 0.3 percent in August.

By the way, July 2002 had the lowest level of jet activity in 2002, and so far in 2003, overall jet traffic is down 3.2 percent.

Night activity - those operations from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. - were also down from 171 to 119 operations in June, 200 to 133 in July, and 196 to 137 in August.

Complaints, on the other hand, remained fairly stable: 960 in June 2003 as compared to 931 in 2002; 730 in July 2003 and 758 in July 2002; and 686 in August 2003 and 632 in August 2002.

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