LILLEY: City staff muse about turning Billy Bishop Airport into park

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If it were up to staff at Toronto City Hall, Billy Bishop Airport would be shut down and turned into parkland. The airport may be a generator of billions of dollars in economic activity for the city but to staff who just issued a report on the future of the Toronto Islands Park, it’s just another part of the waterfront that should be saved from development.

The comments about shutting the airport down come as the city is facing pressure from the federal government and the business community to secure the long-term future of the airport.

“In alignment with current Official Plan policy, if the airport were to cease operating, it is the policy of the City of Toronto to seek conversion of the airport lands to park uses, or a combination of park and residential uses,” the city’s Master Plan for Toronto Island Parks states.

There are many reasons this is odd, including the fact that the Master Plan states time and again that the plan is not meant to deal with the future of the airport.

The airport isn’t even fully owned by the city, it’s a joint program with the federal government and the port authority. The city owns about 20% of the airport which has been operating at that location since 1939.

The current lease for the airport runs until 2033 and the musings by city staff about shutting it down and making it into a park are made in the context of the lease ending. At the same time, though, the airport is in the middle of completing plans to fulfil their Runway End Safety Area, a requirement of the federal government to be completed by 2027 and a process the city is a party to.

Business and labour groups speak out

The language in the current Master Plan has worried many in Toronto’s business community including RJ Steenstra, president & CEO of the Toronto Port Authority.

“Upon reading this section, I felt compelled to address the Committee, and make known to City Council, that the text in this section, and the concept of the airport ceasing operations, should not have been part of, nor remain, in the Toronto Island Master Plan,” Steenstra wrote to council this week.

Steenstra is calling on council to direct staff to move forward with securing the future of the airport, not musing about its demise. That’s a sentiment echoed by 48 executives from both business and labour organizations who wrote a letter to council pressing them to think about the economic impact of Billy Bishop Airport.

The group includes executives in the tourism industry, hospitality, health care, film and television industry, and union reps from the hotel and heavy construction industry.

They point to the airport generating $2.1 billion in economic activity with the expectation that it would grow to $5.3 billion in coming years. The airport also supports more than 4,000 people directly and indirectly.

“The future of Billy Bishop Airport is crucial, not only for Toronto, but also for the many communities that rely on it,” said a letter to council from Neil Pakey, CEO of Nieuport Aviation, which operates the airport.

Mayor Olivia Chow’s opposition to Billy Bishop Airport is long-standing and well-documented. When she was an MP, she opposed the expansion of the airport and vowed to stop Porter from flying cleaner, quieter jets out of the facility.

Is that long-standing opposition now showing up in staff reports where they float the idea of reverting the land back to park status?

Billy Bishop is too important to play political games with, this staff report needs to be changed, the future of the airport secured.

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