Originally published at: Boulder Council Member Resigns Over Airport Vote
Mark Wallach stepped down after casting the only vote against continued operation of Boulder Municipal Airport.
I like reading about common sense articles prevailing. Now his true colors came to light, and he resigned. It’s too bad this isn’t standard or common.
Please clarify. At first it looks like he wanted to close, but his quote, later, “not be a party to…”, sounds like he wanted to keep it open.
Noise and land value are the enemies of airports. Flight training increased about 15% at Boulder Municipal Airport in 2025 resulting in local noise complaints. Small airports hardly ever support themselves financially through fuel sales, tie down fees and hangar rent. Rather they have an indirect effect on city and county revenue through increased business access and taxes. In Boulder’s case there is a gasoline excise tax in lieu of a personal property tax. It’s difficult to measure the positive impact of a small airport but estimates are that this airport generates $78.3 million in annual revenue at a cost of $1 - $2.2 million. I doubt that developing the land where the airport is located would result in more revenue for the city. Loss of the airport to land development would also force the city to spend more on increasing road capacity to deal with the associated increase in ground traffic. Noise abatement procedures are already in place there but neighboring flight schools often abuse them. Boulder can’t control that but the FAA can. In this case Mr. Wallach’s resignation seems more connected with the creation of affordable housing than personal gain. Boulder’s housing prices have risen steeply and environmental restrictions limit its expansion. The median price of a single family home in the city is $1.44 million. Close to 60,000 employees commute to work each day due to unaffordable housing in the city. The land around the airport is less desirable and would therefore be less expensive housing for lower income families. However, this is a very short-sighted viewpoint. Ground traffic is slower and more expensive to accommodate than air traffic. As it increases, people move to the suburbs to avoid traffic jams and to find more affordable housing. However, building and maintaining roads is incredibly expensive for a city or county. Without local airports, travelers must often travel long distances to a major airport. Instead we should be increasing air travel at smaller airports with quieter aircraft. I have hopes that Advanced Air Mobility program and eVTOL technology will result in the replacement of noisy helicopter traffic with quieter technology. For example, a Joby eVTOL is 100 times quieter than a comparable size helicopter. Airports that encourage eVTOL traffic could benefit from fewer noise complaints while allowing airport traffic and business access to increase, shifting some of the congestion away from ground traffic and increasing business development.
I thought the save thing until I re-read his quote. Key word was “land”. “Airport” was the adjective. He’s another Mayor Daley type.
Anyone here want to lay odds that MW was in tight with a land developer? Just a thought….
This is the second time in 20 years where the City of Boulder tried to shut down the Boulder airport. The last attempt was when Obama tried to get rid of through-fence access at public fields. The City jumped the gun and confiscated the land of the Barnow family, who years earlier did a land swap to allow the extension of the runway. The lawsuit cost the city over a million dollars.
The time before that, around 2000, another infamous city council member, Spence Havlick, tried to shut down the airport for a residential project. Recent improvements by the FAA dictated the city would have to pay back $20 million for the recent improvements before the city could condemn the airport. The initiative failed.
The real issue at hand is that the city wants to build itself into a water scarcity trap to accommodate more housing wherever they can build “affordable” housing.
publicly available bios and recent coverage say Mark Wallach was previously a real estate developer, so he does have a direct professional tie to real estate development itself.
so, surprise, surprise, surprise.
Stupid move to quit. No he is not on the council.
He could have worked for the city in many ways losing one fight and going home is
A sign of poor leadership
Boulder, CO, Airport and city council looking for land? Are they kidding? Huge amount of land to the east and west of Boulder, CO! No need to mess with the airport! What is wrong with this council person? The airport was there first, and needs to stay. A no brainer! If this city councilor is looking for land to develop, going eastward will get him what ever he needs. Someone needs to tell him this and stop picking on the airport! Since this city councillor left, the problem left with him?
Sounds like good riddance to Mr Wallach. Too bad we can’t convince the mayor of Cleveland to do that (resign) also, who wants to close down Burke Lakefront airport!
In a city where the median single family home costs 1.44 million, what is low-cost housing? 1 to 1.2 million? That won’t make a difference. It certainly won’t cost $300,000. Maybe he would like to develop that property and put apartment buildings on it and charge $6000/mth because it is on a small lake. That won’t be low-cost either. Building supplies cost what they cost, and labor must be paid a decent wage. So, any low-cost housing being built is probably getting federal funding or grants to offset expenses of building the housing. I doubt that housing would be built and the developer would take a huge loss to make it truly affordable. The developer will make sure he makes a reasonable profit. When they want to fly on their private jet or even a commercial airline, where do they think those pilots come from? They learned to fly at small airports and moved up the ladder to fly heavy iron. That’s where they come from. Keep the airport, lose the aviation hating profit mongers.
Recurring airport issues:
- Local politicians approve building an airport on the outskirts of town.
- Local politicians approve residential development of the land around the airport.
- People move into homes near an airport and then want local politicians to close the airport because of airplane noise.
- Local politicians take all of the Federal “airport money” that they can get for their local airport, then close the airport.
- Repeat.
Tbe age old rule. If you don’t like aircraft noise, don’t move near an airport.
I lived in Boulder for a long time, and just flew back there this week - and learned about the resolution. It is the only area in Boulder that hasn’t changed much over the past 60 years. Boulder has developed some great bike trails, and green belt - however the density of buildings has increased dramatically. Converting the airport to even more housing would simply be a temporary solution - until that too is filled up and no longer ‘affordable’ housing. At some point every city reaches a saturation density, then additional cities/areas are expanded. Visiting Boulder, it appears to be at that point.
The average house in Boulder is around $1M, high definitely but less than stated. The council also voted to accept FAA funding which will protect the airport for some time.
This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.