City Council has approved extending the lease at Billy Bishop Airport for at least a dozen more years in order to complete the necessary runway safety extensions.
The Mayor’s motion calls for the lease at the island airport – which is set to expire in 2033 – to be extended to 2045 which they say should allow PortsToronto to go out and fund the runway end safety areas (RESAS) to be carried out.
Federal regulations mandate the additional safety buffer zones for planes landing and taking off be completed by the middle of 2027. Airport officials said they would like to extend the lease by 40 years in order to secure the necessary financing to make the required changes and to feel secure about the future of the airport.
“We simply need term and we need to be able to have land mass extension – those are the two elements that we asked for from the beginning. And if the City is saying this is not about the future of the airport, then why wouldn’t they give us term,” RJ Steenstra, the CEO of PortsToronto, said ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
Chow said nobody is trying to close down the airport but she wants the focus to be on the runway extension first and then move towards an extension on the airport’s lease.
“What is in front of us is not about the future of the island airport,” the Mayor said ahead of the vote late Wednesday. “We are not closing the airport, I have no intention of closing the airport.”
The mayor’s motion, and several amendments that would see a commitment to a long-term extension discussed with PortsToronto only after the runway safety areas are completed, passed by a 17-8 vote.
The federal agency has faced opposition in the past to future expansion at the airport including larger aircraft flying to and from downtown Toronto.
Allan Carter and Momin Qureshi both contributed to this report