Council OKs airport–related items

Published 8:35 pm Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Renters of multiple T-hangars at the city-owned Warren Field Airport can receive a “volume discount” now that Washington’s City Council has modified the rental rates for T-hangars.

Under the new rate schedule, approved by the council at its meeting Monday, one T-hangar will rent for $2,540 a year. If the same entity rents two T-hangars, the annual rent for the second T-hangar will be $2,159. If the same entity rents a third T-hangar (or more), the yearly rent for third (or more) T-hangar will be $1,905.

The city’s Airport Advisory Board heard a request from Richard Karanian for a quantitative discount for entities renting more than one T-hangar at the airport. Karanian, who rents two T-hangars, wanted to rent a third T-hangar if he could receive a reduced rate for renting multiple hangars.

“After discussing several alternatives, the Airport Advisory Board unanimously voted to allow for a 15% discount on renting a second t-hangar and a 25% discount for anyone renting a third or more t-hangar,” reads a memorandum from Allen Lewis, the city’s public-works director, to the mayor and council members.

City Manager Brian Alligood said the discounted rental rates would make Warren Field Airport more competitive with similar airports in the area.

In another airport-related action, the council amended the city’s budget by allocating $11,213 so it can complete the pavement rehabilitation project at the airport. The city appropriated $1,120 from its balance to go with $10,093 in grant funds to complete the project.

During its meeting Monday, the council imposed restrictive covenants and limitations of use for the Havens Gardens replacement properties.

Those covenants and limitations on the replacement properties are conditions of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources received LWCF approval from the National Park Service as part of the city’s request to use a half-acre of recreational land at Havens Gardens so the N.C. Department of Transportation could replace the N.C. Highway 32 bridge that connects Washington to Washington Park at Havens Gardens.

The replacement properties were obtained with LWCF money and must be used for public recreation purposes only in perpetuity. The replacement properties include a recent 3.5-acre addition to the Susiegray McConnell Sports Complex and two other additions (one 5.61 acres, the other 3.439 acres) to the complex. The LWCF conversion approval required the city to replace the converted recreational property with new parkland, according to a city document.

The covenants and limitations “shall run with the land and shall bind and inure to the benefit of all current or future heirs, personal representatives, successors and assigns of each present or future owner” of the replacement properties.

City Attorney Franz Holscher told the council the land replacement is not done by replacing a piece of land with another piece of land of the same size.

“You don’t replace acres for acres. They place a dollar amount on the property that’s converted, on the .5 acres, and it’s valued at a certain amount of money. Then you propose to purchased replacement property … they accept a certain dollar value on what you buy to replace it. The figures have to be the same,” he said.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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