MUKILTEO – Many residents in Mukilteo are emphatic that they don’t want passenger flights out of Paine Field.
They feel strongly about it, and the City Council’s denial of a request from airport officials last week seemed to emphasize that stance.
Officials with the Snohomish County-run airport had asked the city to change its comprehensive plan to make it fit better with the airport. City officials saw some of the requests as requiring it to soften the city’s stance against expansion.
Paine Field deputy director Bill Dolan said the requests were irrelevant to the question of airport expansion, which arose last year after informal discussions at the county level that passenger service at Paine Field could help the area’s economy.
The airport requested similar changes in the comprehensive plans of Snohomish County and Everett, Dolan said. The county has approved the changes while Everett has yet to decide, he said.
Mukilteo’s policies limiting noise, flights and flight paths are “totally separate from their policy opposing commercial air service,” Dolan said.
The requests were prompted only by a state-required update of local laws, he said.
A city policy opposing commercial air traffic at Paine Field and the one calling for limits on noise, flights and flight paths contradict state and federal laws, Dolan said.
But changing these policies would run counter to the city’s position regarding the airport, Mayor Don Doran said.
“It does change and allow for things that we really now oppose,” he said.
Altering the policies “certainly does tend to contradict what we have always used in Mukilteo as our guide relative to that airport.”
The City Council denied several components of Paine Field’s request. Paine Field requested the changes be put on a list to be considered for inclusion in the 2006 Comprehensive Plan update.
City staff recommended to the council that some of the proposals be rejected and others be included for consideration. The latter included map changes and policies to discourage uses that would attract birds or create other hazards for aircraft.
With little discussion, the council voted 7-0 Monday to go along with the staff recommendations.
Another requested change to the city’s plan, to “encourage economic development opportunities,” was rejected as too broad.
Several of the requests, city staff said, are either already in the plan or are accommodated by the city. Those include a request to provide a noise disclosure statement to anyone developing property, that all proposed structures be reviewed for their effect on airspace and that city development rules be evaluated for their compatibility with the airport.
Two residents spoke at the meeting, supporting the city’s opposition to expansion.
Dolan said later that the airport would re-examine its requests and continue working with the city. It will not be able to resubmit the requests for another year.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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