Councillor raises question of cost of cheap parking at airport

Airport cost question

Photo: File

The costs to park a plane at the Nelson Municipal Airport were questioned in council recently.

It is cheaper to park an airplane for a day in Nelson than it is to park a car, Nelson city council found out when city staff was doing some legislative housekeeping recently.

At its Jan. 6 regular meeting in council chambers at City Hall, a minor housekeeping amendment to the Airport Establishment Bylaw was proposed — one which replaced references to “lease” and “bare land lease” with “licence to occupy.”

Contained within the bylaw, however, was the list of fees for parking an airplane at the waterfront municipal airport, including a daily fee of $10 for all “transient aircraft parked on the airport for 12 consecutive hours.” To park all day in the downtown at a city parking meter it would cost $16 for the day ($2 per hour).

“It's not going to make or break it, but I was sort of interested that it costs less to park your aircraft than it does to park a car,” said Coun. Leslie Payne, who brought the idea up. “Seems incongruous to me. Can we charge them the same that it would cost to park a car?”

City manager Kevin Cormack was quick to reply.

“Well, probably, if you want us to re-look at the bylaw for the future, then we could look at different models,” he said. “This is based on sort of how we lease other land out as well. It's not strictly for the airport.”

“But it just was one of those things where you have to pay $2 an hour to park your vehicle in downtown Nelson. I would think you would have to pay at least that, and I would think more if it's an aircraft, to park your vehicle on, you know, prime real estate in Nelson,” said Payne.

The city also only charges $45 a month for each aircraft parked in the tie-down area.

The numbers didn't align for Payne for the airport costs, and she suggested it was something the city needed to look at in the future.

“Real estate, in the construct in which we live, has a certain amount of value. And I think that needs to be applied equitably across the geography within the city, especially in an area where I don't think we have any clear numbers around the common use of a parcel of … 25.3 acres of prime waterfront land,” said Payne. “So how is that serving the common good? I think that's another question that we really need to examine.”

The costs charged at the airport, as well as the lease costs for the hangars — which is eight per cent of assessed value — are something the city would be looking at in the future, Cormack stated.

“And I think that came up in the OCP discussions and, in the end, (the airport) was reserved as a future land bank and for councils to consider what is the best, highest and best use of that land,” he said.

“In the interim, we should be, you know, making enough to preserve that as that land bank,” said Payne.

“I think we hear a little bit of direction for staff to take a look at the rates” for the airport, said Mayor Janice Morrison.

“Yeah, this is housekeeping. This wasn't intended to change the current structure, but we can certainly look at that as part of the budget discussions,” said Cormack.

The amendment passed third reading.

As well, it was mentioned that the West Arm of Kootenay Lake boat houses would be lumped into that cost discussion.