Debate over project’s pause sparks tensions amongst council
An expansion of the Forest Lake airport was suddenly put on hold after the council declined to take action on awarding a contract for the work, the final step in a years-long process to extend a taxiway and taxilane and build space for four new hangars on the northern side of the airport. But the northern extension has recently received some pushback from some hangar owners who argue that the expansion is ill-timed.
Confusion over what parameters must be met to constitute a hangar as commercial use and how that would affect timing in expansion projects, as well as confusion over funding amounts by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, has left some council members wanting to pause the project.
Commercial vs. private use
One of the key questions about the current expansion revolves around whether or not the hangars would be for commercial or private use.
The hangars that would be built in the northern expansion aren’t necessarily earmarked for commercial use; the airport doesn’t have a zoning code like the city has a zoning code, per say, nor does the Forest Lake city currently have a policy about what kinds of development they’d like to see at the airport. Hangars could be used for either private or commercial use, depending on factors such as access to the runway.
The current project is opposed by Hangar 97 owner Christopher Olson, who argues that there isn’t enough need to build hangars for commercial use, at least just yet.
“This project should be kicked down the road to a later date until you have more private hangars, more people that can actually support the businesses in the field,” he said.
Other hangar owners argue that the reason there’s no demand for commercial-focused hangars is because none are available, and say many businesses would love to come.
The concern of some council members is that the southern expansion wouldn’t allow for potential commercial use, and thus the northern expansion would be the only opportunity for commercial use hangars, though the hangars could be used for either private or commercial use. Because the land hangars sit on is leased by the city on typical 25-year terms (with the exception of the business of Hangar 97, which has a 50-year-lease), arguments were made that any private use of a hangar would prohibit aviation or aeronautic businesses from coming to the airport for more than two decades due to the fact they can’t be built to the south.
But according to interim city administrator Kristina Handt, there are no known city codes that would prevent a hangar from being commercial use as long as it is aviation-themed and has access fronting the runway, and Bolton and Menk’s aviation engineer Silas Parmer said there aren’t any FAA regulations on the topic he is aware of.
MnDOT Funding
The southern expansion would have offered space for 11 new hangars, and had been considered in the early phases of development. MnDOT offered a grant that was tapped to cover 95% of the expansion, which had been a part of the city’s airport capital improvement plan. But as design phases got underway, MnDOT said it couldn’t cover the costs of a southern expansion of the airport and recommended looking into a northern expansion, which was later confirmed as viable, according to Parmer.
Council members Leif Erickson and Blake Roberts – who both took office after the switch from a southern to northern expansion – questioned why the numbers they were shown indicated a larger amount than MnDOT had said they were able to offer for the southern expansion. Erickson questioned the deal, and wondered why MnDOT seemingly raised their budget for the northern expansion, and if the city could pivot back to its southern expansion to “get more bang for our buck.”
(It was estimated that any pivot to a southern expansion wouldn’t happen until likely 2026.)
In an interview later with The Times, Handt said the numbers Erickson and Roberts were questioning during the meeting were numbers from 2021, not 2024, which had not been updated by Bolton & Menk for that council meeting, leading to the confusion.
Updated information on costs are expected to be provided at a joint council and airport commission meeting on Wednesday, June 5, at 6:30 p.m. – after press time – during which the council will continue its discussion on the topic before its expected Monday, June 10, vote on how to proceed.
Council debate gets heated
Debate between the council members became heated as tensions flared.
Council member Sam Husnik, who is both a hangar lessee and airport commissioner, started off council conversation by saying, “There’s no reason to stop this one bit.”
He later told The Times he’s seriously concerned that any delay in the project could affect MnDOT’s willingness to fund the project at all and could jeopardize the funding of future projects.
He added during the council meeting, “We’ll turn down 95% money? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
Tensions rose in the room when Erickson and Roberts pointed out their concerns over funding and expansion plans. Erickson focused his concerns on why MnDOT was providing more money for a project they said they initially would only fund so far, and why that couldn’t be pivoted to a southern expansion.
Roberts called out Husnik’s demeanor, saying, “This man is too intimately involved in this airport [issue], and you can see it tonight, and it’s unprofessional, absolutely unprofessional.”
Roberts then defended the questioning of the project, saying he and Erickson “are doing our jobs, asking questions, and we’re being called out for asking these questions by council member Husnik.”
Husnik rebutted the issue, and defended the project, and called out the two hangar owners who spoke against the project during the open forum, saying they seemed to be the only two who had a hangup.
“We worked hard to get this thing rolling, and all the projects out there, and now we’ve got basically two people in the airport that want this thing stopped, and there’s no reason to stop it. This project must go on,” Husnik said.
Mayor Mara Bain said she was reluctant to make any pivot on the project, but said the unanswered questions over MnDOT funding and the commercial debate were worth discussing before moving forward. She also reiterated her desire for unanimous approval of a project, noting how poorly split-decisions had settled with past councils.
“I think we’re all here to make a good decision, and we’ve also seen what happens when projects happen on very split votes and we end up spending the next 20 years fighting about a 3-2 vote. I’m really trying to provide an opportunity to be transparent in our process, hold ourselves to the numbers, and if there’s an opportunity have some level of consensus, let’s take it,” she said.
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