City Seeks Clarity on Airport Master Plan

The City of Aurora has filed a motion with the State’s Land Use Board of Appeals. The City wants to be heard on a petition filed by Friends of the French Prairie and the City of Wilsonville that challenges the 2012 Master Plan for the Aurora Airport.

It seems the Master Plan, taken as a given in every discussion since 2012 about airport land use, including the extension of the runway, may not have been approved in its final form by the Board of Aviation. The question the City wants answered is, “How much should we rely on this plan?”

The answer will affect our continued efforts to give effective oversight by bringing the airport into the Urban Growth Boundary of the City. It also gives the airport an ability to better plan and help underwrite the cost of any necessary City services.

It is important for the City to participate in the Master Plan as more than just a neighbor affected by the land use decisions of the airport. Those decisions will affect not only the traffic we face each day and the market value of the land our citizens own, but the healthy growth of the City.

Aurora is already in the flight plan, it now needs to be in the Master Plan.

Copies of the motion to participate and the brief explaining its view of the airport, the City and land use, are attached. 

On a second but separate challenge to the airport, you may have seen notice of a Department of Aviation hearing on September 24.  The City provided testimony about why the Master Plan does not comply specifically with statewide land use Goal 12 (transportation) at that hearing.  The City will present additional materials in late October regarding the Master Plan’s inconsistencies with a specific set of other statewide land use goals and local land use regulations.