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Home My WebLink About91-080 4 • CITY OF LAKEVILLE DAKOTA COUNTY, MINNESOTA INTERIM RESOLUTION Date June 17, 1991 Resolution No. 91-80 Motion By Harvey. Seconded By Mulvihill RESOLIITION CONCERNING THE NEW MAJOR AIRPORT SEARCH AREA DESIGNATION WHEREAS, the Lakeville City Council finds: 1. Legislation adopted in 1987 required the Metropolitan Council to adopt a "dual-track" strategy for airport planning. Track "A" calls for .the continued enhancement of the existing airport while Track "B" calls for the designation of a potential new major airport site. The search for a new airport site has not been carried out fairly: A. The criteria for the new major search area designation was adopted by the Metropolitan Council without a public .hearing or adequate public input. Selecting the criteria • dictates the result of the study. B. The Metropolitan Council's new major airport search area advisory task force consists of forty-one members, of which only-seven members are from Dakota County and only four .members live within the Dakota or Dakota/Scott search area. C. At least one member of the advisory task force has expressed the opinion "get it out of my backyard". This is not a rational criteria for decision making. D. The advisory task force is operating without adequate support staff and with limited technical expertise. E. The environmental review process is defective. The Metropolitan Council has two conflicting roles.: responsible governmental unit charged with reviewing the alternate environmental study and project proposer. The Metropolitan Council is the "project proposer" because it is charged under Minn. Stat. 1990 § 473.155, Subd. 3, with designating the search areas for a major new airport. The Metropolitan Council cannot be expected to impartially evaluate its own decision making. • ~ 2. Moving the airport outside the Metropolitan Center violates the Metropolitan Development and Investment Framework Guide ("Guide r06/14/9'! • Plan"). The Guide Plan establishes the following goals, each of which support leaving the airport at its present location: A. Locate all urban development and urban-scale investment within a metropolitan urban service area. Facilities and services needed to support urban development can be provided at less public cost if the land area available for urban development at any one time is defined and limited in amount. The airport is a very large scale urban development requiring sewer, water, and a substantial road network. This very urban facility does not belong in the rural area. 8. Provide existing development and forecasted growth within the urban service area with necessary regional services. The Council will place its highest investment priority on serving ®xistinq development within the urban service area by maintaining and upgrading existing facilities. The existing airport should be supported not destroyed. C. Accommodate unanticipated growth within the urban service area in the most economic and efficient manner. It is more economical and efficient to improve the existing airport and solve .the existing environmental problems than construct a new airport and transplant the problems. Moving the airport will solve nothing. New homes and businesses will be constructed and they also will suffer from airport related problems unless the problems themselves are adequately addressed. D. Preserve agricultural and rural land use in a rural service area, the area within the region lying outside the urban service area. A new airport would require 20,000 acres or more. Most of this would of necessity be farm land. Moving the airport will result in its destruction. E. Concentrat® major commercial and industrial development. Moving the airport will result in the dispersion rather than the concentration of major commercial and industrial development. Hotels, offices, restaurants, entertainment centers would develop around the new airport. The existing area around the airport would suffer a severe economic decline. • -2- • F. Maintain, reuse, and reinvest in older, fully developed areas. A new airport would do just the opposite. G. Maintain a strong, diversified economy. Many businesses in the areas surrounding the existing airport depend on the airport for survival. Many will fall if the airport is moved. H. Make efficient use of public resources. Moving a large scale development out of the Metro- politan Center will create a need for a new and very expensive public infrastructure. This can be avoided by keeping the airport at its present location. 3, Moving the airport out of the Metropolitan Center would be a terrible waste of environmental, human, and financial resources. A. The average drive time to the airport would be extended. This will burn more gasoline .creating more pollution. Rather than being productive people will spend more time driving. • B. If light rail is used to move people to the airport, costs will be dramatically increased because of the greater distance. C. The new airport would not remain an urban island in a rural area. Businesses, offices, restaurants, hotels, amusement centers would develop in support of it. The result would be a new Metropolitan Center. This urban sprawl would destroy farms and the rural character of the area which brought people to it. D. Selection of a search area, siting, construction, and location of a new major metropolitan airport will result in a definite and substantial diminution of the market value of surrounding property. The drop in the value of residential real estate around a new airport would be quick and dramatic. The Airport Commission would be responsible for compensating the landowners. Alevizos v. .Metropolitan Airport Commission, 317 N.W.2d 352 (1982). 4. The Dakota-Scott search area is environmentally unsuitable for a major airport. A. The airport would seriously degrade the present high • water and air quality and would destroy valuable wildlife habitat, wetlands, and prime agricultural areas. -3- r . B. The soils in the area are unstable and very undesirable for urban development. C. The exposed bedrock in the area would increase construction costs and make the underlying aquifer highly susceptible to contaminants. 5. The environmental and capacity problems at the present airport can be substantially reduced. A. Homes and institutions should be acoustically treated. B. Adjacent properties affected by aircraft noise should be acquired or property owners compensated. C. The reliever airport system should be enhanced to handle corporate and general aviation traffic. D. Existing runways should be extended and new runways should be .constructed. E. Air traffic control systems should be improved including the following upgrades, some of which are already in the process of being implemented: (1) new surveillance radar should be installed; • (2) a microwave land system should be constructed; (3) the weather system should be upgraded; (4) advanced traffic management .systems should be implemented. F. Demand management techniques should be implemented to shift demand to less crowded times. 6. The vast majority of the land uses surrounding the existing airport were constructed or purchased long after the airport was in place. These individuals chose to develop or purchase property in proximity to the airport. Moving the airport to a rural setting would force a use with nuisance characteristics on existing homeowners, farmers, and. others that did not choose to live in close proximity to the airport. NOW,. THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Lakeville: 1. Minn. Stat. (1990) § 473.155 should be amended by deleting the "dual-track" strategy and by prohibiting a major new airport. -4- , 2. Plans should be proposed and implemented for improvement and enhancement of capacity at the existing airport. 3. Plans should be proposed and implemented to reduce .noise pollution and other negative environmental impacts at the existing airport. ADOPTED this lath day of June , 1991, by the City Council of the City of Lakeville. CITY OF LAKEVILLE BY• Duane R. Zaun, a or ATTEST: Charlene Friedges, Ci Clerk -5-