Tweed Environmental Assessment Almost Done

Tweed’s airport authority is roughly a week away from submitting to the federal government a draft environmental assessment report — bringing the Morris Cove airport that much closer to realizing its plan to extend the runway and build a new, larger terminal on the East Haven side of the property.

That’s the latest with Tweed New Haven Airport’s expansion plans. East Haven town government, meanwhile, continues to push back against those plans, including in a recent written back-and-forth with the airport authority over such questions as what local approvals may be needed before a new terminal can be built. (See below for more on that.)

During a phone interview with the Independent on Tuesday, Airport Authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon said that ​“we are probably a week away from submitting a draft of the environmental assessment to the FAA,” or Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport authority has been working on that so-called ​“environmental assessment” for around a year. Scanlon explained that the federally mandated assessment looks at the likely impact of the expansion plans detailed in the master plan that the airport authority adopted back in March 2021. 

At the top of the list of recommendations included in that once-a-decade master plan update is the moving of the airport’s terminal from Burr Street in New Haven across the airfield to a new and larger building on the East Haven side of the property, and extending the airport’s main runway from its current length of 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet. The Board of Alders signed off on those expansion plans in a 43-year lease between the city and the airport authority that it OK’d back in September 2021. And, after a celebratory May 2021 press conference announcing that the Goldman Sachs-owned airport management company Avports would be investing tens of millions of dollars in making that expansion plan a reality, the airport authority and Avports then signed their own 43-year ​“facility” agreement in August of this year.

All the while, since November 2021, the budget airline Avelo has made Tweed its ​“East Coast hub” and has built up its commercial airfare service out of New Haven to include nonstop flights to 14 different communities, including Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Savannah, Charleston, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Raleigh. (Even though, as the New Haven Register’s Mark Zaretsky reported on Monday, Avelo will be at least temporarily cutting back on some of its non-Florida routes over the winter. ​“This is not a bad sign,” Scanlon told the Independent. ​“They’re still talking to me about expanding routes. Things are still going very well here. Like any business, they’re making adjustments.”)

None of this teed-up expansion plan can take place, however, without the federal government signing off on the airport authority’s environmental assessment.

Thus the significance of the authority’s planned submission of a draft version of that assessment to the FAA next week or later this month after working on it for roughly a year.

After the airport authority submits the draft environmental assessment to the FAA, Scanlon said, ​“they will then take three or four weeks to take a look at the environmental assessment and give feedback. Then, probably in mid- to late November, they will give us the go-ahead to do a public comment meeting and a public comment period for 30 days.”

Scanlon said that, assuming that that schedule plays out as planned, the airport authority hasn’t decided yet exactly when it will start that 30-day public comment period for the environmental assessment. 

“At some point in December or January,” he said, ​“there will be a public meeting where we reveal the contents of the environmental assessment, and then a 30-day comment period where people can express their views to the FAA directly” will begin. ​“The FAA will then review every single one of those comments,” which should take a few months, Scanlon said.

After all of that, he concluded, the FAA will issue either a so-called ​“Finding of No Significant Impact Record of Decision,” which would give the airport authority to move forward with its expansion plans as proposed, or it will ask the authority to conduct further study.

What About East Haven?

Even as the airport authority prepares to submit to the feds that draft environmental assessment report, East Haven town government appears as determined as ever to contest the airport’s big-picture plans to build a new, four-to-six-gate terminal on its side of the property.

After embracing the airport expansion plans in May 2021, East Haven Mayor Joe Carfora came out against them in his state of the town address in March 2022. In that speech, he argued that a larger Tweed will provide greater economic benefits to New Haven than to his town, and that East Haven will have to bear the brunt of more traffic and flooding. Every East Haven-appointed member of the airport authority board then voted against the 43-year agreement with Avports in in August.

According to a document recently obtained by the Independent, East Haven Town Attorney Michael Luzzi sent a letter to the airport authority on Sept. 29 of this year with a series of questions about needed local approvals for the airport expansion, whether or not a new East Haven-side terminal will be subject to local taxes, the timetable for the environmental assessment, and other expansion-related queries.

Click here to read the East Haven town attorney’s questions from Sept. 29 questions and Scanlon’s answers from Monday in full. Click here to read a detailed response sent to the Independent by Carfora’s office on Tuesday criticizing Scanlon’s answers from Monday. And click here to read a proposed benefits agreement from earlier this summer that the airport authority claims the East Haven town government rejected.

“As always, the Authority and its partners stand ready to collaborate with the Town of East Haven and to advance this project in a manner that maximizes the benefits to your community,” Scanlon wrote on Monday in response to the East Haven town attorney’s questions.

“Know that the Town of East Haven stands committed to working to make sure that correct and complete information is reported to the FAA, to the State of Connecticut and to all the communities and the people in those communities that are affected by the Airport and the proposed expansion and relocation of Airport facilities,” Carfora wrote on Tuesday in response to Scanlon’s response. ​“We will ensure that the planned expansion and relocation is appropriately vetted by all State and Federal agencies, and that the Town of East Haven is treated fairly.”

Below are excerpts from Luzzi’s questions and Scanlon’s answers to those questions, which the airport authority director send to the East Haven town attorney on Tuesday.

Luzzi’s question: We believe and have been advised by the Town’s outside counsel that many of the improvements proposed in the Master Plan are subject to approval by the Town’s Planning and Zoning Commission and Inland Wetlands. We also believe that those improvements will be subject to Town building, fire and public safety requirements. We do not see where those approvals are addressed in the Development Lease. What assumptions have the Authority and Lessee made with regard to the necessary approval processes for zoning, land use, building permits, and inspections for those portions of the Project to be built within the Town?

Scanlon’s answer: The Authority, Avports, and The New HVN LLC are committed within the lease and development agreements to pursue and comply with all applicable federal, state, and local processes for construction at the airport.

For instance, the Airport is located in a coastal area, and activities conducted in coastal or tidal waters in Connecticut are regulated by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. While activities in these areas generally do not fall under the jurisdiction of municipal inland wetland and watercourse agencies, the Authority will comply with all applicable local building, fire, and public safety requirements.

Please note that the Authority is primarily regulated by state and federal law. The Authority is established by special act of the General Assembly, which requires the Authority to maintain and improve Tweed as an airport. …

We believe and have been advised by outside counsel that the new terminal facilities and parking proposed in the Master Plan will be subject to property taxes to be assessed and collected by the Town. The Development Lease seems to assume that all improvements proposed in the Master Plan will be tax exempt. Does the Authority expect that the new terminal facilities and parking will generate any real and personal property tax revenues for the Town?

Neither the Authority nor The New HVN LLC owns the real property on which the airport is located, and, therefore, neither entity would be subject to assessment by the Town for real property taxes.

Further, Section 15 – 120m of the General Statutes exempts the Authority from any taxes or assessments ​‘levied by any municipality or political subdivision or special district having taxing powers of the state.’ That exemption applies to both personal and real property taxes.

In addition, the land on which the airport is located is owned by the City of New Haven. Section 12 – 74 of the General Statutes exempts from taxation municipal airports located in another town, with certain narrow exceptions that do not apply in our case. …

As I have discussed with both Mayor Carfora and you, under state law the town of East Haven is entitled to payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) from the state to compensate the town for real property tax losses due to the exemption for municipally owned airports. Although both the mayor and you have pointed out that PILOT payments are variable from year to year depending on how the PILOT program is funded in the state budget, the construction of the new terminal will increase the base real estate valuation for purposes of calculating East Haven’s PILOT reimbursement.

… As you are aware, East Haven has benefited from a new tiered PILOT formula recently adopted by the General Assembly, and both the Authority and Avports are strongly supportive of efforts to prioritize and increase PILOT reimbursements to host communities for municipally-owned airports.

We do not see that the Development Lease addresses who will pay for the additional services to be provided by the Town if the Project is pursued and completed as planned such as building approvals, public safety, roadway maintenance, snow removal, and similar matters? Who does the Authority expect will be responsible for the cost of these services?

We respectfully disagree with the premise of your question that the Town will experience a significant increase in costs associated with the airport development. Although it has been repeatedly claimed that the airport will impose a significant ​‘burden’ on East Haven, despite repeated requests for such information we have not been provided any detailed projections or analyses of such expected costs. Moreover, most costs associated with the new terminal and airport development will remain the responsibility of the Authority and Avports … It must be noted here that included in our June 21 offer was a proposal under which the Authority would have dedicated a portion of future airport revenue to address municipal costs associated with the airport. That offer was rejected.

What are the Authority’s plans and timetable to enter into a Community Benefits Agreement with the Town similar to the one entered into with the City?

Prior to the May 2021 announcement, in which Mayor Carfora participated and publicly supported the deal to expand the airport, the Authority, Avports, the Town of East Haven, and the City of New Haven jointly agreed to an Avports commitment to a Community Betterment fund in the amount of $5,000,000 to be distributed equally between the Town and the City. As such, the overall agreement for airport expansion was jointly announced with East Haven and publicly supported by Mayor Carfora in May 2021.

Since then, Mayor Carfora and you have communicated to us that your residents would prefer those committed dollars to go toward additional noise mitigation for neighbors who were not part of the original FAA program. Thus, that commitment by Avports was reflected in the Authority’s lease agreement with the City.

The Authority initiated an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) immediately after completing the Master Plan and held a scoping meeting on November 18, 2021. No further information has been shared publicly, no draft has been released for public comment, and minimal coordination with the Town has occurred. What is the Authority’s plan and timetable for compliance with NEPA, including consultation and public participation requirements? Considering the massive expansion to the Airport being proposed, including a major runway extension, what is the Authority’s expectation about the need for an Environmental Impact Statement after the EA is completed?

We are conducting an Environmental Assessment at the direction of the FAA in compliance with the NEPA process. An EA defines the purpose and need for the project, analyzes the potential impacts of the project and alternatives; demonstrates compliance with other Executive Orders and environmental laws; and allows for public participation, when applicable. An EA may also contain mitigation measures that avoid, eliminate, or reduce anticipated impacts.

We are still preparing the EA together with the FAA. Once the EA is completed, there will be an opportunity for public involvement, including by East Haven, and this will include reasonable public notice of the availability of the EA and a public review and comment period. After the public review and comment period, the FAA will review and consider public comments, and the environmental analysis may be revised further based on these comments. 

You can find out more about the EA process at www.faa.gov.

Lastly, we have also made efforts to go above and beyond the requirements of the NEPA process to include our neighbors in East Haven. Please recall that the Authority formed an Environmental Stewardship Committee in 2022. As a show of coordination with the Town, Mayor Carfora appointed three East Haven residents to that committee and those committee members have received updates at Environmental Stewardship Committee meetings from McFarland Johnson, the Authority’s Environmental Assessment consultant. We expect that those briefings will continue throughout the EA process.