South Suburban Airport

Planning a major airport is a lot like washing an elephant.
They are both big, doing it is controversial, and you can definitely get hurt.

The third airport for Chicago was first proposed over fifty years ago. Numerous alternate locations were proposed and considered in the mid 1970's and 80's. A location south of Chicago was selected and the State of Illinois began buying land.

The airport is very controversial. The City of Chicago opposes it, viewing it as competition to O'Hare and Midway. Many property owners in or near the site object to the acquisition of the site and noise and congestion impacts. Some environmentalists oppose the airport as sprawl.

Advocates of the airport believe that the jobs and economic development would revitalize the south side of Chicago and northwest Indiana. The southern portion of metro Chicago has lagged behind the rest of the region.

Part of the disagreement is simply a time focus. We can get by with the two existing airports in Chicago, with more traffic thrown off to airports in other regions. And part of the disagreement is whether the Chicago region will grow and expand and whether the United States will continue to grow, with additional air traffic each year.

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Eastern Will County is the site for the proposed Third Airport for the Chicago Metropolitan area. It is located just south of Chicago on the Illinois Indiana State line. The State of Illinois has purchased substantial acreage for the new airport, and has completed numerous studies.

I prepared the Land Use Plan above for the Will County Regional Planning Commission. The Commission developed a land use plan with and without the airport, a transportation plan, and numerous Sustainable Development polices. The villages and two Counties around the proposed airport developed revised land use plans which were incorporated into these plans.

I also prepared the plan for Will County below:

We developed the Sustainable Economic Development for land use and transportation with the proposed third airport for Chicago. The Plan combines economic development and environmental improvement into one discipline.

Leave your City better then you found it. "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.“

· Mitigate the impacts of the new airport

· Develop strategies with and without the airport

· "Right Size" transportation improvements

· Use open surface natural drainage where feasible

· Incorporate bikeways and pedestrian path

· Minimize pavement widths, cost and material

· Support natural open space and parks

· Require street trees

· Revitalize Eastern Will County and south Chicago

· Increase Sustainability and Green Technology

· Retain and Expand Existing Businesses

· Nurture and Grow New Businesses

· Attract New investment and Business

· Create a Positive Image of the region

· Increase the Diversity of the Economic Base

· Provide Solid Jobs at Good Wages

· Promote efficient buildings

· Use recycled material in buildings

· Recycle building material waste

· Encourage rain harvesting and irrigation

· Use passive solar orientation of buildings

· Encourage solar and wind energy systems

· Employ green roofs

· Support the use of natural landscaping

· Improve municipal staff knowledge of “green” techniques

· Support quality construction for long lived buildings

· Design wetlands, drainage systems, retention and bio swales into parks

· Update codes to encourage “green” development

· Encourage development that supports transit

More Info About The Airport

faa.gov/airports/airport_development/ssa

southsuburbanairport.com/MasterPlan/MP-reports.htm

centreforaviation.com/data/profiles/newairports/chicago-south-suburban-airport-peotone

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Chicago_south_suburban_airport

The map below shows land for the airport. The areas in green have been purchased and would be used for inaugural airport, which will include one or two major east west runways. The light purple shaded land represent land needed for the ultimate airport, which proposes six east west runways.

Click to see a large view of the map above

https://web.archive.org/web/20070929142506/http://www.southsuburbanairport.com/PropertyOwnerInfo/images/Ultimate-concept.pdf

Eastern Will County Watersheds

History of the proposed airport - From Wikapedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Chicago_south_suburban_airport

Stanley Berge, a professor at Northwestern University, first proposed a Peotone airport site on November 13, 1968. His main arguments for the proposed site were that it could have fast access to Chicago by rail and highway, that the site was far enough from O'Hare Airport to avoid interfering with flight patterns there, that it would have all-weather flight safety, and that the site was environmentally compatible with the surrounding area. Berge envisioned a high-speed train service to downtown Chicago.^[2]

The Peotone site was an alternative location to a proposed lake site announced during Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s 1967 inaugural speech, just one of many projects proposed, including a Red Line expansion. The Chicago Public Works and Aviation Department worked cohesively with the Federal Aviation Administration during the Johnson and Nixon administrations from January 1967 to January 1970 to develop a litany of needed consultant reports beginning with an appraisal report, a summary of engineering reports, and graphic simulation studies for both a land and lake site. On January 27, 1970, Daley shelved plans for the airport, stating, “It was not necessary until year 2000.”

Following 15 years of investment at O'Hare Airport and Midway Airport in the early 1970s, the north urban airport became a strain for the north central suburbs of Cook County in the mid 1980s. State legislators from north suburban Cook and DuPage counties applied political pressure to control expansion of O'Hare. House and Senate legislators tried three times to pass a Metropolitan Airport Authority bill from 1985 to 1987, in an effort to alleviate airspace noise and pollution from the urban airport. Legislators compromised on a resolution, which awarded $500,000 for a transportation study for the proposed third Chicago airport.

In 1986, state legislation created the Illinois Airport System Plan Policy Commission (IASPPC). The commission had bipartisan and tri-state support from the governors of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Commissioners chose consultant Peat Marwick to develop the aviation studies.

The first capacity study concluded that neither O’Hare nor Midway could meet the expanding aviation market, and recommended a supplemental airport be built. South Cook Senator Angelo DeAngelis (R) of Olympia Fields advocated for the Peotone site. DeAngelies stated, "Economic considerations would override political ones in choosing a location."

Four months after the election of Mayor Richard M. Daley in August 1989, the Lake Calumet site was submitted by Daley as an alternative site to the IASPPC. By February 5, 1990, Daley released a feasibility study for the Lake Calumet site which indicated that the $5 billion cost to construct the airport would be partially funded by a passenger facility charge which would generate $1.8 billion. Federal legislation sealed the passenger facility charges on August 2, 1990, in the 101st Congress's 2nd session through H.R. 5170.

Nearly 2 million people in 66 municipalities and villages live in south Cook and north central Cook, which would be directly impacted both positively and negatively by an urban airport. Land restrictions of an urban airport had taken its toll on some of the members of the North Central Council of Mayors; they began the first suburban Cook coalition. Along with the South Suburban Council of Mayors and the Southwest Council of Mayors, this group has produced consultant reports showing negative impacts.

However, it appears the passenger facility charges sealed its fate in the selection process. The City of Chicago also acquired three seats on the IASPPC, bringing the total to eleven. Political pressure by the City of Chicago ended in IASPPC members voting to eliminate all rural sites from the final vote. The final vote selection was between Gary Airport and Lake Calumet. IASSPPC member DeAngelis gave an emotional speech "that attacked the process and political pressure placed on the committee."^{[citation needed]}

Following the selection of the Lake Calumet site, Daley attempted to put a legislative bill through during the end of the legislative session. The cost of the Lake Calumet site was $10.8 billion. Senate President Pate Phillips did not support the bill because it left the state of Illinois footing $2 billion of the cost. It took four tries in the House before reaching the Senate. By July 1992, Mayor Daley declared the airport issue dead.

Planning for the South Suburban Airport began in 1984 as a cooperative venture between the states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, the city of Chicago and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). After many studies, the airport location alternatives were narrowed to five sites in 1990.

The state of Illinois submitted an Environmental Assessment to the FAA in March 1998 for approval of the development of an airport at a site in eastern Will County, Illinois. Recently, the FAA prepared a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for site approval and land acquisition. The FAA issued a Record of Decision (ROD) on the Tier 1 EIS in July 2002, which approved the Will County, Illinois, site as a technically and environmentally feasible location for the development of a potential future air carrier airport in the far south suburban area of Chicago.

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) began purchasing land surrounding the Will County airport site in 2002 with funding of $75 million earmarked by the Illinois FIRST program. The state has purchased about half of the 4,200 acres (6.56 sq mi; 17.00 km²) required for the plan.^{[citation needed]} The current plan is in flux as the position of the runways are continuing to be debated.^[3] Eminent domain cases are working their way through the courts.

In June 2008, Gary-Chicago International announced an agreement with 3 local railroads (Norfolk Southern, EJ&E and CSX) that will allow the airport to relocate railroad tracks and expand its runways. These longer runways will be able to accommodate jets of any size class. In March 2011, then Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced his intention to start construction "as fast as humanly possible" on an airport in Illinois; however, the FAA had not finalized plans yet and the land acquisition was still not yet completed.^[4]

In June, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood noted that there had been little call in Washington, DC, for the Peotone airport compared to the support for the O'Hare expansion, although plans for the South Suburban Airport are still in the works.^[5]

The proposed airport is within the airspace of an existing airport, Bult Field (C56), a privately owned airport with a 5,000-foot runway. On July 1, 2014, IDOT purchased Bult Field and some surrounding farmland for $34 million for the new Chicago-area airport.^[6]

References[edit]

"South Suburban Airport". Faa.gov. Retrieved 5 October 2014.

South Suburban Airport

Eastern Will County Watersheds

History of the proposed airport - From Wikapedia

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