By Sara Strong
Expansion plans for the Luverne Municipal Airport will continue with a slightly different plan than was released earlier this year.
The Luverne City Council, acting on a recommendation from the Airport Board, voted Tuesday to go forward with engineer plans that call for the expanded runway to be further south.
Final surveying and more revisions are still needed before the plans can be examined at the state and federal levels.
Cost of the new plans and other components like an environmental study is about $18,000, of which the Airport Board is paying $5,000. That money comes from federal funds, though.
After public input, the engineering and consulting firm Bolten and Menk moved the expanded airport runway plans far enough to the south to allow for growth closer to the interstate. This met with more favorable reviews from area landowners than any other previous plan.
"We want this to be a cooperative effort," Airport Board Chairman Pat Baustian said.
The Airport Board wants people to know that a bigger runway will help the entire area. The hospital can use it for high-speed, longer distance patient transports. Bigger businesses or ones with distant executives can fly into the Luverne airport instead of Sioux Falls.
Baustian said expecting businesses to come to Luverne because of the runway may be putting the "cart before the horse," but that's better than having a prospective business not locate in Luverne because of inadequate transportation services.
Baustian said a quality airport is as important as busing or highway department services to the infrastructure of a community.
Township roads caused a clash between the city and Airport Board and the townships and county Planning and Zoning Board last time the runway expansion was debated.
The gravel township road just south of the airport (running east and west) is going to be closed with or without a new runway because of its proximity to the current runway.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation said the road is a liability to both the township and the city because of the airport and the airport is continually cited for the road being left open.
A road further to the south, between the properties of Greg Uithoven and Dan Smeins, will remain open according to the new runway plans.
Most areas that the airport gets easements for are still farmable. Height restrictions in the proposed new runway clearance area are mostly limited to very tall buildings or towers. Regular business or residential buildings would be at an acceptable height to meet regulations.