As officials and consultants assessed sites for a commercial airport to handle more flights than Miami International Airport within a half century, the governing criterion was not suitability but turbulence. They looked at eight sites and ruled out five based on how big the barriers were to use as a n airport, not on how well they could do the job. The three “winners” are those that the study said face the least friction. For example, in looking at a commercial airport for Homestead Air Reserve Base, the study notes that “key political figures, including [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and Rep. Carlos Giménez, have voiced strong opposition…” The rejected sites were viewed as facing extensive turbulence from “past stakeholder opposition” while the three still in the race were found to face clearer skies. Last week, when Miami Today revealed the study and its preliminary results, a fistful of readers wrote that one or another of the rejected sites would be best for a major airport to use in conjunction with, and eventually outpace, Miami International. The critics had reasons for looking beyond the anointed sites, but they cited suitability, not the ease of getting a deal done – which was the ticket for admission to the finals in the airport derby. Let’s look at the experts’ thinking, starting with 5,000-acre minimum size – although by that standard you could throw out Miami International, which has only 3,300. When flights started there in 1928 the airport was suburban and land was abundant. Now it’s surrounded by one of the nation’s most populous urban areas. In a chart called a “high level site evaluation matrix,” the study lists only five criteria: environmental and regulatory constraints, past stakeholder opposition, airspace compatibility, expansion potential, and competing interests. Every discarded site is burdened with extensive impacts in at least two of those five categories. Sites not ruled out by impacts shown in the chart as big red barriers are expansions of Miami Executive Airport or Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport or a new airport between the two. They remain in the running, and we’ll return to them. But let’s look first at the five sites that were ruled out, and why. What was intended to be the world’s largest commercial airport was the Everglades Jetport, 39 square miles in the Big Cypress National Preserve 50 miles west of Miami International Airport. The county acquired it in 1968 and built the first runway but then cancelled the project based on what remain formidable environmental barriers. Though the study doesn’t say so, that land was taken from the county and now detains immigrants under the state’s snappy title of Alligator Alcataz. Also ruled out was Site 14, once intended to replace Miami Executive Airport and eventually Miami International Airport on 23 square miles west of the Florida Turnpike and Krome Avenue and south of the Broward County line. Environmental studies also shut down that plan. It was ruled out of the current study with four big red boxes on the spreadsheet. Most of Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport “is currently under a long-term lease which would be unavailable for future development,” the study noted, and “previous efforts to convert the airport for commercial service have consistently received strong opposition from local officials.” Cross it off the list. Homestead Air Reserve Base, which the county two decades ago considered its main target for a second major commercial airport, “is not considered a viable option” because that would interfere with the base’s military use, the study said. It wouldn’t pass environmental muster and it “could encourage urban development projects – such as a proposed Amazon logistics center north of the base, which would require expanding Miami-Dade County’s Urban Development Boundary, further stressing natural resources,” the study said in nixing that site. Opa-Locka West Airport, which the study ruled out, was decommissioned in 2006, and PortMiami is exploring the development of an inland port at the 420-acre site to support increasing cargo volumes by expanding storage capacity. The three sites still in the race all have their own issues, including the ability to expand to the size needed by a new airport – Miami Executive Airport has only 1,380 acres of the 5,000 needed, Miami Homestead General Aviation Airport has just 796 acres, and a brand-new airport would have to acquire all 5,000 acres. In addition, all three would need upgrades of the County Development Master Plan and an expansion of the Urban Development Boundary, which would be only slightly more popular than having a new airport operated by Russia or China. The study notes that Miami Executive Airport has been designated a Florida spaceport territory, so whatever expansions planned there would have to fit into the spaceport mold, which is certainly uncharted territory. Finally, if a new airport were placed between Miami Homestead and Miami Executive airports, flights there “may require the decommissioning of either airport” because of airspace constraints. That could add to capacity needs at the new airport and unsettle current customers. By the scorecard of the study, there are no clear winners in an airport derby, just five clear losers. Let the political jockeying begin. The post Clear skies the winning factor in Miami’s airport site derby appeared first on Miami Today. ...read more read less