HYANNIS – Barnstable Municipal Airport is creating a 20-year master plan to help ensure the continued safety and efficiency of the facility and is looking for community input during the development process.
The development of a master plan is required by the Federal Aviation Administration in order to plan for future airport projects in need of federal funding.
The document will consider whatever changes might need to be made to ensure continued use of the facility, including increasing the size of aircraft parking aprons, expanding parking lots and changing or extending runways to meet federal standards.
Barnstable Municipal Airport Manager Katie Servis said that another example of considerations that need to be made by the master plan is how to accommodate the possible introduction of electric aircraft by Cape Air.
“Those are the things that, during this 20-year plan, we need to think about to make sure that we have the infrastructure to not only support aviation, but to support what’s happening and what changes are occurring in the aviation industry,” said Servis.
Servis said that, traditionally, workshops with informational stations would be hosted by the airport in an open-house format during the development process in order to allow members of the public to ask questions about the master plan.
However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the workshops could not be held and instead the airport is taking its meetings with stakeholder groups to a virtual format.
Content that would normally be featured at the workshops has been migrated online, including draft documents on the airport’s website and videos on their YouTube channel featuring presentations from previous project stakeholder meetings, divided by topic into short, narrated videos for the public.
The dedicated e-mail address [email protected] has also been set up for residents to voice any questions or comments regarding the master plan for the airport.
Barnstable Municipal Airport said that comments and questions received by November 2 will be included in a response and answer video that will be added to the YouTube channel at a later date.
“We feel that during this COVID-19, people might actually have more time to access videos and get a little bit more intimate with learning about the master plan through these video series. We might actually get more comments and more questions than we typically get in an open house setting,” said Servis.
Servis said that it is crucial for the public to have a voice in what is happening with the plans for the airport.
The airport’s YouTube channel can be found here.
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