WETUMPKA ALABAMA- Wetumpka City officials, for the first time, hosted a meeting Tue Jun 11, at the Wetumpka Municipal Airport to present and discuss another new land lease for owners of hangars and other buildings at the airport.
Present for the city were Lynn Weldon, airport manager, Regina Edwards, city attorney and Allen Thames, newly appointed airport consultant. The owners present were, Dr. Roger Kemp, Richard and Mrs. Chaput, Col. Frank Barnett, Jules Moffett, Dave Ramsey, Brett Curenton and attorney for the owners, Wade Ramsey.
-Allen Thames, City of Wetumpka Consultant seated next to Tri D Upholstery owner, Richard Chaput at lease meeting held at the Wetumpka Airport, courtesy photo-
Ms Weldon welcomed all present and thanked them for
their time then turned the meeting over to Ms Edwards who explained to the
group that the city wanted input from airport tenants before making final the
new lease agreement. After briefly going over the proposed lease she took
questions concerning several items in the lease. First was the length of the
lease, which now will be 5 years, with two additional 5 year renewal periods,
the FAA minimum for long-term leases. This was in response to the city's last
lease of only a one year term. The next item was the rental rate for the land
being leased. Edwards stated that for the first 5 year period, all rent would
be based on like value of undeveloped airport property and be done by a
qualified appraiser at a cost of approximately $20,000 dollars or approximately
2 years worth of rental income to the city. When asked who that would be she
did not know. Several tenants than asked how this could be done since there is
no airport in the state that has the same makeup of Wetumpka and this would
violate the FAA regulations. This too was not answered. After the first 5 year term the rent would be
adjusted up or down by the CPI and again for the last 5 year term.
The third item of importance that created much discussion was the clause that states that after Jan 1 2014, upon the termination of this lease for any cause, any improvements made by the tenant to his building or any new building will revert to the city of Wetumpka. After hearing several statements from the group that this clause will essentially kill all new privately owned hangars from ever being constructed, Thames claimed that it is an FAA regulation whereby attorney Ramsey, disputed this saying his research of FAA regulations showed that it is up to each airport on this issue.
Lastly, the city announced that it will not honor several ground leases currently in effect with their tenants, but are instead demanding that the tenants sign a brand new lease which strips away property rights.
After the meeting there was considerable talk among the tenants hoping that the city was sincere in welcoming input from its airport tenants. The bigger question is whether or not the city will actually make the changes the group wants. The group plans to respond to the city in the near future but told the city attorney that until the pending lawsuit filed against the city with the FAA in Washington is final, no one would be signing any new leases. - Special to Alabama Aviator.com