The Conservation Commission expects to vote Wednesday on Jet Aviation’s application to expand into a wetlands buffer zone at Hanscom Field. The group meets on Wednesday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hartwell multipurpose room.
At the public hearing on February 19, Jet Aviation, which services and stores business jets at Hanscom, presented its plan to enlarge its facilities on the south side of the airport to update facilities which are “inadequate due to design and size limitation and are therefore unable to safely accommodate newer aircraft.” The proposal calls for a 40,000-square-foot hangar to replace an existing 22,000-square foot hangar as well as another 12,000-square-foot building, 94,000 square feet of ramp areas, a new access road and replacement car parking.
In its application to the Conservation Commission, Jet Aviation said the project will improve safety and efficiency for the company “while minimizing impacts to wetlands buffer zones to the greatest degree possible” and “will result in an improvement to the overall watershed, since additional water quality enhancements are being provided for the existing site which currently receive no treatment.”
Jet Aviation has locations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Dana Fales, director of the Hanscom site, did not return calls from the Lincoln Squirrel seeking comment.
Many area residents spoke at the first hearing against the plan, which was also the subject of two letters to the editor in the Lincoln Squirrel last month. Save Our Heritage, which works to protect national landmarks in the HATS area and has compiled a history of previous attempts to expand use of Hanscom, wrote a November 2013 letter opposing the plan and linked to a similar letter from HATS (the Hanscom Area Towns Committee comprising selectmen from Bedford, Concord, Lexington and Lincoln).