09 - Hangar Lease amendments & enforcement

Home Browse Search

Item No. 9 TO: Mayor & City Council FROM: John Godwin, City Manager SUBJECT: HANGAR LEASES AT COX FIELD DATE: February 22, 2019 BACKGROUND: The airport advisory board has been discussing a number of issues over its last several meetings in an effort to clean up and update leases and their management, and to maximize airport use for its intended purpose. At its regular meeting of February 21, the board made recommendations on several topics, including revised hangar lease documents, adjusted hangar rents, a hangar use policy, and procedures to enforce leases. STATUS OF ISSUE: In regards to the hangar lease revisions, the attached list identifies nine new or changed provisions, eight of which were approved unanimously by the board. Most are relatively minor cleanups, but I want to highlight a couple of them. Recommendation 4 states that if a hangar remains empty for 180 days then the lease is forfeited; in the past tenants have been able to do almost anything they wanted in that regard. Number 8 (approved 5-1) gives first choice of city -owned hangars to Lamar County residents, though the board agreed that any non- resident now renting a hangar or on the current wait list would be exempt from this provision. In regard to lease rates, we conducted a survey of other comparable general aviation airports and recommended increases for all but the four newly built ones that are already paying a current higher rent, and the hangar used by our FBO. The board unanimously approved the rates for the city -owned hangars (attached), which should make us comparable to others. Based on our long- standing wait list and the fact that we have some current tenants that do not use or rarely use their hangars for aeronautical purposes, we do not believe the higher market rate rents will have any negative effect on usage. A new hangar use policy reflects the existing requirements of the revised hangar leases but in a shorter, nineteen item list version that is easily referenced and also would be required to be posted in the airport terminal and in or on each city -owned hangar by the tenant. Three recommendations were approved in regards to hangar management and lease enforcement: