Wealthy areas often have clusters of NIMBYs who band together to try to close airports in their area – they don’t like the traffic and noise (which was usually there before they moved in) and don’t like outsiders traveling through their towns. This repeats itself in places like Santa Monica, California and Westchester, New York.
Boulder, Colorado is suing the FAA in order to close its airport. They took federal grant money, but say requirements to actually have an airport after taking money to support the airport are unconstitutional (.pdf).
The city has already stopped accepting grants with an eye to closing the airport in 2040 when the last obligations reach their 20-year expiry, but the FAA says it may never allow the airport to be closed. That’s because three grants, one of them from 65 years ago, were used to buy land for the airport, and that triggers a clause that requires the airport to be operated in perpetuity unless the FAA agrees to release Boulder from those obligations.
Boulder wants to close the airport. They say they hate the noise, and want housing development instead. And they say requiring them to keep an airport on land the FAA paid for, built with money FAA gave them, exceeds the FAA’s authority.
There are limits to what the federal government can require when making grants. This is the “unconstitutional conditions doctrine” which suggests that the government cannot condition the receipt of a benefit (such as money or a permit) on the waiver of a constitutional right, especially if the government does not have the authority to impose the condition directly. The unconstitutional conditions doctrine is applied in various contexts, such as:
- First Amendment: The government cannot condition a benefit on the waiver of free speech rights. For example, in Speiser v. Randall (1958), the Supreme Court held that California could not condition a tax exemption on a requirement that veterans sign a loyalty oath.
- Fourth Amendment: The government cannot condition the receipt of a benefit on the waiver of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures such as requiring welfare recipients to submit to random drug tests (without sufficiently compelling state interest).
- Fifth Amendment: The government cannot condition the receipt of a benefit on the waiver of due process rights. For instance, in Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), the Supreme Court held that a city could not condition a building permit on the landowner’s dedication of part of her property to public use unless there was a “rough proportionality” between the condition and the projected impact of the proposed development.
- Spending Clause: The government cannot use its spending power to coerce states into adopting federal regulations that it could not impose directly. In South Dakota v. Dole (1987), the Supreme Court upheld a federal law withholding a percentage of highway funds from states that did not raise their legal drinking age to 21 but suggested there are limits – federal grants must be related to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs.
Conditions must not be so coercive as to pass the point at which “pressure turns into compulsion.” There must be a reasonable relationship between the condition and the purpose of the benefit. And the burden imposed by the condition must be proportionate to the benefit conferred.
Clearly requiring that an airport taking federal airport funds be used as an airport is a strong nexus, proportionate to the project, and no otherwise-violative of constitutional rights.
So the city is arguing that the text of legislation creating the grant programs weren’t explicit enough on the conditions that the FAA imposed in exchange for money; that the city didn’t know what the FAA would claim it was agreeing to in accepting funds; and that the FAA can’t force the local government to operate an airport under the 10th amendment.
It seems to me that the very least the City of Boulder should do if it wants to be free of obligations to operate an airport is to sell the airport (there’s no obligation for a city to administer an airport, they can solve their own claimed constitutional issue) or to pay back the federal government the funds received for the airport?
Query, who would purchase the airport given the lingering “cloud” over its existence? Typical idiot left wing loon “bridge people!” My guess is the protesting morons either fly private or avail themselves of the excellent Denver airport! Noise in your backyard? Good! Mine? Bad!
Oh yes, Orwell “Animal Farm” — “Four legs good, two legs better!”
Sounds like a bunch of crybabies.
The NIMBYs who litigate and lobby most effectively tend to be more to the center or to right than they are to the left. Sometimes they are even egged on or supported by real estate players who are knee deep in using money and influence to get what they can get out of a situation where NIMBYs want to further limit an area or see it transformed for their own narrow interests.
@GUWonder “The NIMBYs who litigate and lobby most effectively tend to be more to the center or to right than they are to the left. ” This is simply not accurate, though there are NIMBYs of all political stripes.
What makes you think it’s not accurate? While the left seem to love the litigation bar more than the US Chamber of Commerce and Club of Growth types, the working class and poor left communities don’t have as much per person to NIMBY and also tend to have less in the way of means to pay to litigate and lobby at the state and federal levels. And while there are plenty of law firms that take up pro bono work, the better litigators tend to be hired guns at the end of the day and the wealthier tend to get their way because of that and a greater ability to drown out other interests by just dragging things out with courts and legal threats. Just look at what goes on with stifling public transit development to higher income neighborhoods.
The wealthier tend to be less to the left and more to the center or the right in the country.
They need to cool their jets. Coach Prime and the hangers-on that come with him will be gone soon enough.
@GUWonder – my daughter went to CU and I spent a lot of time in Boulder. I can assure you it is very dark blue and the people behind this are almost certainly Democratic voters.
BTW – I see no reason for the airport to exist since I frankly didn’t even know it was there since it is general aviation only and I always flew in and out of DEN. Odd if there is a well organized wealthy group of NIMBYs they don’t want it open for private jets (which along with charters, medical flights and the occasional fire fighting flight) are about all that use it today.
I live within 15 minutes of the Boulder airport. It is clear that more clarification is needed to explain Boulder’s request. The airport is too small for any jet aircraft, which causes charter flights to use the nearby Broomfield airport which has hangers + a longer runway. Boulder’s airport today solely exists to serve private aircraft owners with single engine turboprop aircraft. Less than 100 people benefit from this airport, yet the entire city population must fund its upkeep. The city is absolutely correct that citizens would be better served by turning this area into housing instead of keeping it as a low utilization airport which cannot handle today’s larger aircraft. This is not a NIMBY issue and it is unfortunate that people are representing it as such. I absolutely support aircraft – but they can easily use the Broomfield or Longmont municipal airports that are both within 20 minutes of this outdated facility.
A majority of the voters in Boulder are not registered as Democrats. Boulder is c 3.5 registered Democrats for each registered Republicans, but there are more independents than registered Democrats voting in Boulder. They have about 1.5 independents + Republicans voting for each voting registered Democrat there.
So 3.5 times as many Dems, verses Rep. and 1.5 times more Ind verses republicans? You just shot a big hole in your own argument. I Wonder what GU would say.
For every 2 registered republicans there are 7 democrats and 3 independents, according to you. Hardly center to right leaning. BOOM.
I wonder if the true reason is to build “affordable” housing. Maybe Boulder should be let out of it’s obligations after paying back the grants early and paying the federal government the current full market value for the land. I’m sure Boulder doesn’t want to do either of those things.
Hey GUWonder, direct quote from bestneighborhood.org: “Boulder tends to be very democratic based on voting results in recent elections. Compared to other nearby cities, Boulder has more democratic voters. Compared to the nation as a whole, Boulder leans more democratic.”
All they have to do is require low income housing and they will hotel to keep that airport open until the end of time lol
Just say the airport will be replaced by low income housing and they’ll shut up faster than you can ‘low income housing.’
Pilot93434, no. You need to re-read and get working on the math or just admit you’re deliberately misrepresenting what was in my comment.
The actual voter breakdown there has more registered independents voting in Boulder than registered Democrats voting in Boulder.
For every 1 registered Democrat who turns up to vote in Boulder there are something like 1.5 Independent+Registered Republicans turning up to vote in Boulder.
For every 3.5 registered Democrats who turns up to vote there, there is 1 registered Republican turning up to vote there.
This isn’t even advanced algebra — forget about calculus — so get working on understanding something rather simple like
Like in Colorado as a whole, registered independents in Boulder have been somewhat more likely to vote for Democrats than used to be the case back when Republicans were running more normal candidates than nowadays.
Do like Naples is proposing to do and relocate it. Capitalize on the land value to help pay for the relocation.
https://www.flynaples.com/airport-exploratory-study/
I read the complaint… a lot of people are missing the actual legal issues at play here.
The problem is that the FAA is trying to impose a *retroactive* and *perpetual* requirement that was not required by the terms of the grants. The issue isn’t the concept of grant assurances themselves, but rather the ex post facto aspect.
There was a similar case in 2014 when the FAA would not allow a GA airport in Missouri to be closed. In that case, however, the city managed to convince Congress to pass a bill giving that airport a “sui generis” exemption without having to turn to the courts.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2759/text
@Samus Aran – that’s only one piece of it, they don’t want to wait the 20 years on the most recent grants. FAA by the way says they aren’t doing anything retroactive, they paid for part of the airport land it cannot be repurposed. your georgia example proves the point by the way, it took an act of congress to overrule the FAA suggesting that the FAA had the authority…
Yep, it’s the far right that wants to get rid of the airport.
https://propertyclub.nyc/article/most-liberal-cities-in-colorado
The city has been electing Democrats into Congress since Nixon screwed the pooch, but still the plurality of the city’s voters are not registered Democrats. The number of independents and registered Republicans voting in Boulder exceed the number of registered Democrats voting in Boulder at about a 1.5 to 1 ratio.
The Republican Party has gotten so weird that even moderate and conservative independents end up being called out as liberals for voting for moderate Democrats such as Gary Heart who was a relative angel on Monkey Business compared to what Ye MAGA Lord did at Bergdorf Goodman and other places within (my idea of) walking distance from the home of Ye Born Again MAGA Lord.
Hart*