Queens Airport Leasing Hearings Begin

The City of New York is quietly taking the initial steps to extend the Port Authoritys current leases of the John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports for an additional 35 years.
The new contract hikes the Port Authoritys annual rental payment to more than $90 million for the two airportsa far cry from the $3 million received in 1993, according to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Currently set to expire in 2015, the new lease would be extended to run to 2050 so that the Port Authority could enter into beneficial long-term contracts with airlines and developers. The agreement also includes a $700 million payment when the lease is approved.
Stressing the importance of the new agreement, the Port Authority has already conducted a series of informational meetings with borough community boards in order to gain public support for the agreement.
CB and local activists may seize this opportunity to limit the number of flights, control flight paths, extend the route of the AirTrain, expand the federal soundproofing program, as well as impose strong plane noise limitation rules.
Councilman John Liu, chairman of the Councils Transportation Committee, who has been closely monitoring the agreement, said that all Queens councilmembers and Borough President Helen Marshall have a tremendous stake in the agreement being negotiated between the mayor and the Port Authority.
The legislators have already expressed a deep interest in the development of three key, but little known, factors of the agreement:
The Port Authority will pay $10 million per year, for five years, for Queens capital construction projects.
Establishment of an Airport Board to review airport standards. Marshall has already contacted Mayor Bloomberg to express a strong interest in becoming a member of the Board.
Funding for the feasibility study of one-seat rides between Downtown Manhattan and JFK Airport will be provided. Local activists want LaGuardia Airport included in the railed transportation loop.
Queens community boards (CBs) have already been scheduled to commence on a detailed Environmental Assessment Statement which revealed that two airports make up nearly one tenth of the usable land in Queens. The Port Authority has already met with CB 7 representatives.
For the CBs environmental committees, the thick report revealed that the two fields contain over 100 aircraft fuel tanks with a combined storage capacity of 37 million gallons. In order to handle JFKs daily 700 plane take-offs, the giant airport acontains an estimated 50 miles of underground fuel lines.
Aside from their commercial services, the two fields 250 million square feet jointly accommodate a million passengers a week, 109 airline carriers from around the world, and currently provide gainful employment to more than 45,000 airport employees as well as additional thousands of service workers in Queens. Their combined efforts to help generate more than $21 billion into the citys economy as well as needed tax revenue into the citys treasury.
The Port Authority was established in 1921, and has operated the two airports for more than 55 years. The original 50-year lease controlling the city-owned land was signed in 1947 and extended to 2015 in 1965. This new agreement ends continuous negotiations that began a decade ago, during the Giuliani administration.
The key to the disagreements during the past decade has been the charges that the Port Authority has continually favored New Jersey projects over New York City programs. Another point, during the heated negotiations in 1997, Giuliani had angrily proposed legislation that would have permitted the city to take control of its two airports in 2015.