Airport Master Plan

Rutlant, Vermont Master Plan:

FAIR HAVEN — The airport committee will focus on repairing the hangar and wait until March to revisit the runway.Last month, voters rejected moving into the next phase of the airport master plan. The plan calls for re-angling and extending the runway at the municipal airport as part of a long-term effort to develop and upgrade the facility.The $6,000 ballot item was defeated, 527-465.

Voters approved, by similar margins, other ballot items allocating a $15,000 match for a grant to repair the roof of the hangar and allowing the airport committee more flexibility in the use of town funds in maintaining and improving the grounds.Airport committee chairman William Rozensky said Tuesday that while there had been talk in town of petitioning for a revote, no petition materialized.

For the immediate future, he said the committee would focus on the hangar by pursuing the grant."In the meantime, we want to keep the hangar from deteriorating any more," he said. "Our objective is to have the roof wrapped in plastic. It should be done ASAP, before the snow really starts flying."

Once that is squared away, Rozensky said the committee plans to begin trying to again sell the voters on the airport master plan in time for Town Meeting Day.The plan would lengthen the 1,990-foot runway to 2,600 feet, while widening it from 25 to 60 feet. Rozensky has estimated the cost at $3 million, but said the project is eligible for a Federal Aviation Administration grant that could put the town's share as low as $60,000.

The FAA announced in March that the project had been placed on its five-year plan for capital improvements in New England, and that it would likely make its way to the top of the list by 2010. Rozensky said a March vote to approve the next phase — preliminary design of the new runway — would keep the town on the list.Rozensky has long argued that there is a market in the area for a functioning airport of the size that can be provided in Fair Haven and that it would be an invaluable tool for the town's economic development.

Built in the 1930s, the airport has been used primarily for local recreation in recent memory.