Bringing It Home

From the start, the debate over the future of East Hampton Airport is full of doomsday scenarios and calls for extreme measures from both sides. Yet the correct path for the East Hampton Town Board was always the middle of the road — certainly not closing the airport for good, but not the status quo either. There is a great deal of room in between those extremes.

The board chose an approach that was at the same time radical — honestly, it was going to take a radical measure to address a problem that has metastasized over the years — and conservative. Compared to other options, the planned temporary closure, now working with the Federal Aviation Administration to cushion the blow, was preferable to, say, the alternative idea to eliminate all commercial traffic for a year.

Frankly, there is no perfect solution here, but the Town Board can be guided by a few basic notions. One, the private pilots who fly fixed-wing recreational aircraft out of KHTO should be taken care of — they are bystanders in most of the battle over the airport, and the one group that deserves to be protected. Second, this is not a zero-sum game: One side must not lose for the other to win. There is no solution that eliminates all traffic, all noise, all pollution — except permanent closure, which is not reasonable, considering the value of an existing transportation hub for a region with many visitors. The goal is to mitigate the damage as much as possible, to return to something reasonable.

Finally, any hope that charter companies might put local quality of life over profits has been squelched, so it’s clear that the town must step in on behalf of aggrieved residents. That means real limitation, but it must be realistic: The charter companies are filling a demand that exists and won’t so easily be discouraged. Limiting a company’s number of flights, when they come and go, and how — but allowing a fair flow of clients within those parameters — is going to be a tricky equation to draft, but it’s not impossible.

Work within those basic ideas, and town officials can find some compromise solutions, which it now has the ability to not just suggest but demand. That means concessions from both sides. The worry, of course, is that the aviation interests will expand in other ways to make up the lost flights — Montauk, Gabreski, floating helipads. But the truth is, if the compromise isn’t onerous, they’ll be much more likely to go back to what they know best. The flights might get a little less frequent, and a little more expensive. A small price, paid by the right people.

Between now and May, there will be lots of turbulence. But the Town Board has a strong hand on the yoke — and landing this thing will be a lot easier if it aims for the center of the runway.