A proposed Houston airport site could accommodate large jets -- someday

What you need to know:

• A proposal headed to the Houston City Council would allow officials to request from the state land that could be annexed into the city and used to host an airport with a runway long enough to accommodate large jets. The land identified for the project is located in Willow, several miles outside Houston’s current city limits.
• Houston Mayor Carter Cole said they’re looking to start small but dream big. Setting aside land for a large airport means they could eventually expand. For now, they are looking for land on which to build a much smaller runway for the city, which currently does not have a public airport.
• The plan is in the early stages, city officials said, and they haven’t yet officially contacted the state about absorbing the land or done research on construction regulations. It is scheduled for consideration by the City Council during an Aug. 8 meeting.

PALMER – A proposal set to go before the Houston City Council next month would allow officials to request from the state a swath of land large enough to someday host an airport with a nearly two-mile runway that could accommodate passenger and cargo jets.

The plan would allow the city to set aside plenty of land for future airport development while giving the city space to build a small runway in the next few years, Houston Mayor Carter Cole said Tuesday.

“The whole concept of this is just getting the city of Houston an airport so it can, in the future, join the modern world like every other city,” he said. “In five years, if we have a nice little dirt strip there, that would be a nice thing.”

The proposed airport site is in Willow, west of the Houston city limits and near the Nancy Lake State Recreation Area, according to maps provided by city officials. It is now owned by the state of Alaska, with most of it managed by the Department of Natural Resources, according to Matanuska-Susitna Borough property records.

If approved, the measure would allow the city to work with Alaska State House Rep. Kevin McCabe to request the land, according to the proposal first presented to the City Council this month. The land would ultimately be annexed into the city, Cole said.

Houston, home to about 2,000 residents, does not currently have a public airstrip. A 4,400-foot runway is near the George Parks Highway in Willow, about 10 miles northwest of the proposed site. Nearby lakes are utilized by floatplanes.

The committee proposed an area that could allow a clear path for future expansion to accommodate aircraft diverted from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport or equipment used to fight the region's regular wildfires, said Houston resident Robert Hall, who chairs the airport committee.

It's a step that airport planners in Wasilla and Palmer didn't take and that Houston officials can easily avoid, he said.

“We’re not really looking to become the Houston International Airport,” Hall said. “We’re not planning on building a 10,000-foot airport. But if we ask the state for enough for a regular airstrip, well, why not make it a little bit bigger?”

In Wasilla, a nearly 1,500-foot extension of the Wasilla Airport runway currently underway will stretch it to more than 5,100 feet, but will extend the airport closer to the city's current boundary. In Palmer, where the longest runway is just over 6,000 feet, any future extension would likely require paving over the nearby Palmer Golf Course. The longest runway at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is 12,400 feet.

A large airport could also give the region a much-needed economic boost, Cole said.

“Air travel is not going to become less,” he said. “Most packages are traveling by air now. We’ll probably, if nothing else, be able to be a freight-in area for this region.”

Any large airport project could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars, Cole said. Initial funding could come from the state, Cole told council members.

The city has not conducted an airport feasibility study, fully researched related land regulations or taken other steps necessary to make an airport project a reality, Cole said. A private landowner with an adjacent 160-acre parcel also has not been contacted, he said.

Consideration of the proposal was postponed by the council until Aug. 8 so that council members could hold a work session with the city's Airport Advisory Committee, which was formed last year and held its first meeting in March.

The Airport Advisory Committee originally considered two sites for the proposal: one near Nancy Lake and a second to the north of the city, closer to the nearby mountains, Hall said.

Details on the location of the second site were not immediately available. The site was not presented to the City Council.

The proposal sparked an outcry on social media from residents, many of whom worried that such a plan was unnecessary or, if built, would create a large influx of people in an area that many value for its rural nature.

Pushing through a state transfer of land outside Houston's city limits is inappropriate because it is already included in planning documents for the Willow area and because it oversteps Houston's authority, Houston City Council member Sandy McDonald said Thursday.

“In my opinion, Houston City Council does not have the authority to give a resolution to say that we approve of the airport in this place because, while it is state land, it is actually in Willow,” she said.

Tryg Erickson, who chairs the Willow Area Community Organization, said he plans to appoint a committee to monitor the project's progress. He said he would be surprised if an airport plan moves forward anytime soon.

“If it receives real momentum, and if the sponsors can show us where the money would come from, we’ll spend even more time on it,” he said. “The likelihood of that happening in my lifetime is very low.”

-- Amy Bushatz can be contacted at abushatz@matsusentinel.com.