A plan to increase parking spots at the Haines airport by one-third or more won’t be included in a $12 million improvement project set to begin next spring.
The project’s scope of work has been pared down to expedite construction and address a main goal of eliminating flooding in the apron area, state Department of Transportation officials said this week. Instead, the project will add four car spaces to the existing lot, which will be “rehabilitated,” they said.
Airline workers have taken to parking as many as a half-dozen vehicles inside the fenced perimeter of the airport, due to recent crowding in the airport parking lot.
The improvement project could go to bid as early as January, with construction to begin in March, but additional parking on the north side of the existing road – as well as apron expansion toward town to improve safety – has been removed from the work.
“We wanted to deliver a project as soon as possible. That’s why we scaled it back. The (additional work) would have required a higher level of environmental documentation, because the impacts would be greater,” said Jim Scholl, project environmental coordinator for DOT.
“In the future, the parking lot may be relocated and expanded as part of a larger project,” Scholl said.
DOT project designer Travis Dennison said several factors altered an original plan to put expanded parking on the north side of the airport road. “That entire parking lot was in wetlands,” he said.
Also, plans to lease the existing parking lot area ran into questions about appropriate use of public funds, Dennison said.
DOT scratched plans for relocating Yendeistakye Creek, removing a “frog pond” at the site and expanding the apron east toward town. The work planned initially included filling in federal waters and working on an anadromous fish stream and pond, environmental coordinator Scholl said.
“We’re having very little environmental impact at this stage in the game,” Scholl said. “It was taking us an awful long time to document environmental impacts.”
The airport has 32 standard parking spaces, plus two for the disabled and two bus parking spots. Under current plans, four additional standard spots will be added to the existing lot that will be “rehabilitated.”
The project will add up to three feet to the grade of the airport apron, and add drainage. It will also remove four existing private hangars north of the terminal, including ones owned by L.A.B. Flying Service, Shane Horton, Don Turner and Ron Martin.
Hangar owners who are in good standing with the state will be compensated and offered leases for rebuilding after construction, said Lynette Campbell, chief of aviation leasing for DOT’s Southcoast Region.
Campbell said she expected that more than a dozen aging L.A.B. planes tied down at the airport will be permanently removed early next year. The planes haven’t been operated since the closure of the airline in 2008.
“I’ve kept (L.A.B.) apprised of our timeline until now. They know January is the next date,” Campbell said. The airline has been good about moving the planes to make room for snowplows and helicopter operations, she said.
There are no fees for tying down planes at state-owned airports in Southeast, Campbell said, but planes must be flyable. She can’t make a determination of flyability, she said. “I have no way to do that realistically. If you ask L.A.B., I’m sure they’d say they’re airworthy.”
Designer Dennison said the airport project has passed through three different management teams since its inception. Plans for a snow removal equipment building also have been eliminated.
During construction, there should be plenty of parking, as cars will be able to use areas including the sites of demolished hangars, Dennison said.
Susan Schumacher, assistant manager for Alaska Seaplanes, said the airport parking lot was not crowded early this week. She speculated that a recent CVN story about the potential for regulated parking there may have caused some motorists who use the lot for long-term parking to park elsewhere.