Tweed Backers Push For Runway Expansion

Hartford — New Haven officials urged lawmakers here to pass a bill that will allow a 1,000-foot extension of Tweed-New Haven Airport’s runway — and, the officials claimed, help the region and the state compete for high-tech jobs.

They made the pitch Monday before the General Assembly’s Planning and Development Committee. The provision to abolish a current restriction of Tweed-New Haven’s runway is tucked inside House Bill 5354, which would establish a pilot program for shared solar facilities at municipal airports.

Mayor Toni Harp said her administration has been working toward expanded airline services at Tweed. She told lawmakers Monday that expanded flight options would help millions of Connecticut residents get where they’re going quicker and more conveniently and keep the money they spend flying out of airports as far away as New Jersey in the state. Extending the paved runway from 5,600 to 6,600 feet would enable the city to lure small commercial jets that could take people to Florida and Washington, D.C., and perhaps Chicago, she said. The airport currently has service only to Philadelphia.

“Wouldn’t it be preferable to keep residents in Connecticut for the first and last legs of their flights?” she asked. Harp noted that ​“within 500 miles Connecticut has access to one-third of the U.S. economy and two-thirds of the Canadian economy.”

“In other words, a very short flight away,” she said.Without expanded flight options out of Tweed, the region, and the state are losing out on ​“bright prospects that we literally cannot afford to keep inaccessible,” she argued.

City Economic Development Director Matt Nemerson called expanding the runway and providing community solar a win-win. People who live near the airport would see a benefit of reduction of their electric costs and the Greater New Haven area would be much more competitive, he said.

“The reality is most high-tech companies will not move to a city unless they are 15 or 20 minutes to an airport that at least goes to a major connection city like Chicago and a major regulatory city like Washington, D.C.,” he said.

He noted that though planes are smaller, they need the extra runway length to conform to their lower thrust engines and other safety provisions.

New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar, who serves as committee co-chair, said he believes that 80 percent of residents within the vicinity support the expansion of the runway. But he added that support drops the closer one gets to the airport. He asked where East Haven, which he also represents, stands on expanding the runway. (The airport sits on land that’s in both New Haven and East Haven.)

Tim Larson, Airport Authority executive director (as well as a state legislator from East Hartford), said because the expansion remains inside the fenceline and is all in New Haven, the mayor of East Haven is OK with the expansion.

But not everyone is OK with the expansion. Though opponents didn’t come to testify in person, many submitted written testimony.

New Havener Lynne Bonnett wrote that while she supported community shared solar, the state doesn’t need another pilot. It could simply implement a program, she said.

“HB 5537 is really just an effort to allow Tweed to move forward with plans to make the airport another major airport when we already have a major airport in Hartford area, only 40 miles away,” Bonnett argued in her letter. ​“With rising sea levels and increased storm activity Tweed airport is not a viable option for long-term planning and development of our transportation assets.”

Fellow New Havener Sean O’Brien echoed Bonnett’s sentiments.

“This proposed legislation is ostensibly about solar energy but is an obvious and egregious attempt to hide Tweed airport’s expansion in an alternative energy proposal,” O’Brien wrote. ​“No one will benefit from the implementation of solar farms that are precariously placed on threatened coastal [flood] plains, and all of us in the Morris Cove and East Shore neighborhoods of New Haven will be harmed by the inevitable environmental destruction that would accompany Tweed’s expansion.”

Airport Authority Board Chair John Picard testified that in addition to making Greater New Haven and the state more competitive, the expansion of the runway would also eventually get the airport off the state dole.

“The state subsidizes Tweed to the tune of $1.5 million,” he said. ​“We believe with additional runway length would could become, in time, self-sustaining … [and] hopefully give some money back to the state.”

When asked had the city ever considered buying out the homeowners near the airport, Mayor Harp reminded lawmakers that the neighbors bought homes knowing the airport already existed. But she also noted that the city couldn’t afford to do that. However, the city has received and spent $5 million retrofitting neighbors’ homes to keep out the noise (and in some cases add central air conditioning.)

Yale-New Haven Health Vice-President Vin Petrini called extending the runway critical to the growth and retention of critical new members of its medical team. The system is one of the largest employers in the state with about 25,000 employees.

“We see the extension as a way to benefit the city and the state,” he said.

Before testifying in Hartford, Harp also discussed the Tweed runway on her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s ​“Mayor Monday” program. Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full program, which also touched on city finances, the new schools’ superintendent, and new business openings in town.

This episode of ​“Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.

The 2018 Agenda

Bill #	Status	Summary	Sponsors
HB 5001	In Committee Died on the Floor	To impose a fee on transactions involving virtual currency.	Pat Dillon
HB 5031 SB 4	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Passed Gov. Signed	To allow students to have equal access to institutional financial aid.	Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee
HB 5082	In Committee Committee Approved Died on the Floor	To provide state funds to assist hurricane victims from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who are living in Connecticut.	Juan Candelaria
HB 5126	In Committee Died on the Floor	To increase funding to boards of education and family resource centers that provide assistance to students and families from Puerto Rico.	Juan Candelaria
HB 5112	In Committee Sent to the Floor Died on the Floor	To permit the retail sale of marijuana and tax such sale to raise revenue for the General Fund and to fund substance abuse treatment, prevention, education and awareness programs.	Juan R. Candelaria, Angel Arce, Josh Elliott, Steven J. Stafstrom, Jeff Currey, Susan M. Johnson, Chris Soto, Patricia A. Dillon, Roland J. Lemar, James M. Albis, Christopher Rosario, Kim Rose, Robyn A. Porter, Edwin Vargas, Matthew Lesser, Gregory Haddad, Joshua Malik Hall, Ezequiel Santiago, Diana S. Urban, Toni E. Walker, Robert Sanchez, Alphonse Paolillo
SB 1	In Committee Died on the Floor	To expand the sick leave program to provide earned family and medical leave to certain individuals employed in this state.	Martin M. Looney, Bob Duff, Timothy D. Larson, Steve Cassano, Beth Bye, Terry B. Gerratana, Gary A. Winfield, Ted Kennedy, Catherine A. Osten, Marilyn V. Moore, Edwin A. Gomes, Mae Flexer
SB 62	In Committee Died on the Floor	To provide tuition-free community college for Connecticut residents.	Martin M. Looney
HB 5182	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Died on the Floor	To require building officials in certain municipalities to establish and assess a fee for the commencement of certain work without a necessary permit.	Planning and Development Committee
HB 5210	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Passed	To (1) mandate insurance coverage of essential health benefits, (2) expand mandated health benefits for women, children and adolescents, and (3) expand mandated contraception benefits.	Insurance and Real Estate Committee
HB 5084	In Committee Died on the Floor	To encourage the recycling of nip bottles that otherwise frequently litter urban areas.	Roland J. Lemar and Juan R. Candelaria
HB 5350 HB 5537	In Committee Committee Denied Sent to the Floor Died on the Floor	To create a pilot program for shared solar facilities at municipal airports. The bill also would delete the provision that dictates the length of Tweed Airport’s runway.	Energy and Technology Committee
HB 5475	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Passed	To amend statutory provisions concerning a police officer’s viewing of a recording from body-worn recording equipment under certain circumstances.	Judiciary Committee
HB 5515	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Passed	To permit a zoning commission to regulate the brightness and illumination of advertising signs and billboards.	Judiciary Committee
HB 5540	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Died on the Floor	To ban guns without serial numbers and regulate those which are sold in a form requiring the purchaser to finish assembly or that are homemade and to permit local authorities to interview immediate family members as part of a determination of an applicant’s suitability.	Judiciary Committee
HB 5542	In Committee Committee Approved Sent to the Floor Passed	To ban the sale or transfer, possession, manufacturing or use of bump stocks or other accessories to increase the rate of fire of a firearm.	Judiciary Committee