by Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 29/98) - Some ratepayers say plans to rezone a massive parcel of land would take money out of their pockets and put it into territorial coffers.

The creation of a custom-made "Airport Environs" designation would dramatically widen the range of uses for the airport property, opening it up to the kind of commercial and industrial development the city had hoped the Kam Lake Industrial Park would be full of by now.

"The big importance of the airport rezoning is the territorial government needs to be taken off the hook for another money-losing entity they've acquired from the federal government," Kam Lake property owner Alex Debogorski told council at a public hearing Monday night.

Debogorski and Yellowknife Property Owners' Association vice-president Mike Byrne pointed out the airport lands, which cover an area larger than Frame Lake, would be offer cheaper alternative to the comparatively rocky and distant Kam Lake properties.

"Any development of the airport lands must be absolutely restricted to uses directly related to the aviation industry," said Byrne.

Sales of the 223 Kam Lake lots have been far slower the city had projected when it developed the area in the 1970s. Thirty-one have yet to be sold.

Both Debogorski and Byrne said instead of providing a cheaper alternative to Kam Lake, the city should build an access road from the Kam Lake subdivision to Highway 3, as originally planned.

"Many property owners in Kam Lake have been patiently waiting for this to happen, and some have been counting on it," said Byrne.

The only person to speak in support of the rezoning of the 566-hectare property at a public hearing Monday night was airport manager Tom Cook, who noted that airports are under pressure today to be self-sufficient.

The federal government passed the responsibility, and the expense, of operating the airport to the territorial government in 1995.

"We have to start approaching the airport as a business, is what it comes down to," said Cook, describing airports as "economic engines" for the communities they serve.

The primary way of an airport making money, explained Cook, is to lease property it has available to private businesses.

Currently the airport holds 30 leases, but requires the rezoning to open up more land for development.