Development at the Le Sueur municipal airport may be ready for takeoff following the passage of a new lease agreement aimed at encouraging the construction of airport hangars.
The motion, passed by the Le Sueur City Council on Monday, allows the owners of newly constructed airport hangars to lease the land from the city for 20 years. This marks a significant extension of the lease agreements previously offered by the city, which were previously limited to a five-year cap in accordance with the city code.
“Ultimately the benefit to the city is we don’t want to turn the screws on the hangar owners we want to encourage development, we want to establish good partnerships with them and we don’t want to put them in a position where they may not want to build,” said Roby
Roby said staff and the Airport Commission pushed for a change to the city’s lease agreement with hangar owners as the city had tighter regulations on its landholdings than other municipal airports. Roby feared these regulations were “potentially offputting” to prospective builders and with owners only able to lease the land for five years a time, staff worried the existing agreement would push pilots away from considering Le Sueur as a site for their hangars.
“There is likely some concern from the hangar owners that the city owns all the renegotiation power,” said Roby. “Someone looking to build a hangar might look at that and say, ‘Well I’m thinking of selling my hangar in five years, and if the next guy has to come in and renegotiate and it’s a really careless set of terms, I’ll have a hard time selling my hangar.”
To resolve these issues, the Le Sueur City Council passed a new ordinance on July 24, raising the maximum amount of time the city can rent out airport property from five years to 20.
“When we try to bring in new hangar owners or potential builders to sites they want to know there’s more in it than a five year lease because they’re looking at a 20 year useful life,” said Roby. “So realistically we should allow leases of the airport hangars to extend beyond five years.”
The updated ground lease agreement was also up for City Council consideration on July 24, with several proposed modifications from the Airport Commission, one being that the language be amended to clarify that a tenant’s lease with the city would not be renewed, but instead renegotiated for a minimum five year term and maximum 20 year term.
Staff recommended that the current language, which states that tenants may seek an extension on the ground lease, was sufficient to protect the public interest. Looking for more input from the Airport Commission, the City Council sent the measure back to the committee for further review.
However, waiting for a review from the Airport Commission would have delayed the measure until they reconvened in September. Rather than postpone the proposal for another three months, Mayor Shawn Kirby asked the lease agreement be reconsidered at the July 8 meeting.
“I think it would be more detrimental to the community, to the airport and to the commission to wait much longer,” said Kirby.
Ultimately the City Council voted to approve the ground lease agreement without the changes proposed by the Airport Commission.
Flooding update
Roby reported that the bypass diverting wastewater from the Mayo Park lift station to the city’s wastewater plant has remained functional nearly a week after it was installed by city crews and a contractor amid surging floodwaters.
The bypass was put into place on June 25 after the city was inundated with a torrent of rain that resulted in the waters of the Minnesota River submerging the lift station near Mayo Park. The lift station, which collects wastewater from the city of Henderson and companies like Cambria and Bimeda, experienced a failure on the morning of June 25 which resulted in a release of wastewater into the Minnesota River.
Crews began assessing the condition of the lift station on Monday to determine what options that city can pursue to bring the infrastructure back online. The bypass will remain in place until the city can restore lift station operations. Likewise the bump on the asphalt on County Road 22 left by bypass will remain in place until the lift station is in good condition.
Railroad Street and Water Street, a pair of gravel roads in the floodplain near Mayo Park behind Agropur and 500 North Main Street suffered significant damage after being partially submerged in the flood. Those roads are still closed to the public and will remain closed for at least 20 days after the flood has receded as the water is considered contaminated.
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