Tweed Cleared For Renovations Takeoff

After a debate that concluded that climate change was not on the agenda, Tweed New Haven got the final sign-off Wednesday night to spend $5 million preparing its airport for new nonstop Florida flights.

The sign-off came in the form of a unanimous vote by the City Plan Commission to approve a site plan for the renovations.

The vote came after hours more of public testimony, continued from a previous four-hour public hearing, dominated by opponents concerned about environmental aspects of the plan.

Before voting, several commissioners said they would have liked to weigh in on issues related to climate change and environmental health. But, they concluded, their votes were constrained to whether the site plan followed existing city regulations. Several commissioners suggested they could play a role in advocating for different parameters for future votes.

Tweed has big — and controversial — visions for a $70 million, privately-funded expansion that would extend its main runway and build a new terminal on the East Haven side of the airport.

But that larger proposal wasn’t under review on Wednesday.

Instead, the commission had been tasked with reviewing an initial, smaller step in the airport’s planned expansion: a site plan for $5 million in renovations to the airport’s existing West Terminal. The plan includes renovating two existing administration buildings, adding two ​“modular trailer buildings,” and transforming a decommissioned runway into a parking lot with 266 new parking spaces for what’s intended to be a temporary, three-year intervention before the proposed long-term expansion.

These adjustments are meant to allow for a new commercial airline, Avelo, to establish three additional Boeing 737 planes at Tweed, which will fly exclusively to four airports in Florida beginning in November. At the moment, the only commercial flights at Tweed are American Airlines’ once-daily flights to Philadelphia. Last week, Avelo CEO Andrew Levy announced that each week, the company would run five flights to Orlando, five flights to Ft. Lauderdale, three flights to Tampa, and two flights to Ft. Myers, with one-way tickets starting at $59.

Wednesday’s meeting was a continuation of a City Plan Commission meeting last week, at which commissioners opted to defer their decision.

Commissioner Adam Marchand, who also represents Westville’s Ward 25 on the Board of Alders, acknowledged that the airport’s big-picture expansion plans have raised neighborhood concerns about the environmental and health impacts of the project, as well as quality-of-life issues like increased noise, pollution, and traffic in the area.

Assessing the short-term plans at hand, though, Marchand argued that the West Terminal renovations would improve Tweed whether or not the long-term expansion succeeds.

“I’ve used that airport, and I think the changes being proposed will help it function better,” he said. ​“In the shorter term, unless we’re proposing to shut the airport down — which I don’t agree with — we should help make it function better.”

The new flights to Florida could increase opportunities for New Haveners and make the airport more financially sustainable, he added.

Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe said she has reservations about Tweed’s broader plans to expand. But she said she felt called to vote in favor of the plan based on the limits of her role as a commissioner.

“I have a hard time separating Leslie Radcliffe the citizen from Leslie Radcliffe the commissioner, but when I look at the requirements of what we have to do … as a commissioner, I find that I would need to support the application,” she said.

Commissioner Ed Mattison voted in support of the plan with a similar reluctance: ​“My problem is — and I can’t get it out of my mind — that I don’t think the ordinances make sense in the age of climate change. We should have much more focus on the resilience of what we’re doing than we do now.”

Marchand agreed. ​“In the age of global climate change, we need to be looking at the zoning code,” he said, offering an open question: Could the Commission offer recommendations to the Board of Alders about building standards and zoning codes to focus on environmentalism?

Twelve members of the public testified Wednesday evening on the renovation plans. Eleven of them spoke out staunchly against the site plan approval.

Activists against the plan raised concerns that the increased flights would elevate carbon emissions, increase local air pollution, and affect neighborhood asthma rates; that investing in the coastal airport’s expansion isn’t wise given predicted sea level rise; that future construction at the airport would interfere with biodiversity of the neighborhood’s wetlands; and that proposed traffic calming measures along thoroughfares like Townsend Avenue wouldn’t be sufficient, among other concerns. (Read more about those criticisms, and the airport’s responses, here and here.)

The sole advocate for the plan, Bill Villano, who heads the Workforce Alliance of South Central Connecticut, expressed support for the renovation because of its potential for creating new jobs for airport workers.

East Haven resident Lorena Venegas argued that the airport should not receive a waiver exempting it from applying reflective coatings in the planned renovations.

Reflective surfaces would help mitigate the amount of heat absorbed by the airport’s structures, limiting the project’s contribution to global warming. ​“Our area with so much pavement and concrete requires that the airport do its part to make sure they are using reflective heat coating,” Venegas said.

Radcliffe asked airport representatives to speak further to the reflectivity waiver.

Andrew Vasey, a consultant with Vasey Aviation Group, explained that reflective surfaces and other heat reduction mechanisms would be disruptive to the airport’s activities.

“FAA regulations discourage reflective items for airplane landings and takeoffs” as a safety issue, Vasey said. And adding shade-producing trees — another common solution to heat absorption — could pose a danger to airplanes taking off and landing; airports are generally required to surround runways with open space in case something goes wrong with a plane.

Finally, trees tend to attract birds, Vasey said — which the airport hopes to deter from the area with planes coming in and out.

“I’m not convinced that you worked hard enough to figure out a solution,” Marchand responded.

He asked Vasey whether a non-reflective coating material could reduce heat absorption without interfering with plane travel. Vasey responded that the material would need to be reflective in order to effectively dispel heat.

Marchand followed up with a suggestion to place a cover over the parking lot with solar panels: Is the parking lot too close to the runway for a solar panel roof?

“Much of it is,” Vasey said.

“So is there a portion of it that is beyond the buffer zone?” Marchand asked.

Vasey replied that the FAA would need to formally designate one of the airport’s closed runways as ​“decommissioned” in order for such a structure to conform to regulations — and that since the parking lot is meant to be temporary, a solar panel structure might not make sense to build. But it’s ​“something we could look at,” he said.

Marchand also asked about the airport’s bike infrastructure. He suggested building a bike storage shed after Vasey reported that Tweed has two bike stands. Marchand also asked about pedestrian protection in the parking lot. Vasey said that Tweed could look into creating a pedestrian path along the side of the lot.

Commissioners then voted to approve the site plan on the condition that the airport work with city staff to review pedestrian and cyclist protections.