GREAT BARRINGTON — He doesn't want a special permit, he just wants to build a few hangars.

And if that doesn't work out — no sweat.

"We'll just go on the way we are," said Walter J. Koladza Airport co-owner Jim Jacobs. "As far as I'm concerned we are pre-existing use and that's where we're at."

When Jacobs said all this to the Select Board on Monday, the whole process banked sharply into uncharted airspace.

Even airport manager Kenneth Krentza looked at his boss, bewildered, as board Chairman Sean Stanton and Jacobs agreed he would regroup with Krentza, his attorney, engineer and business partners.

Just before that, Stanton, also bewildered, said, "what are we all doing here, then?"

Ultimately, the special permit hearing for the airport's zoning compliance in its current residential/agricultural location was continued again, to June 12.

Right now, the three proposed hangars can't be built without this permit, or some other route that would allow new construction there. The airport was built before zoning regulations existed.

Town Planner Christopher Rembold was asked what other process is available to Berkshire Aviation that would allow it to build.

Rembold said he didn't want to "speculate too much," but he said it was a possibility the town building inspector could rule on it in some way, and that would likely send the company to the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Conservation Commission for approval.

"It's open to interpretation [by the building inspector] and that's the problem," Stanton told Jacobs.

It was yet another dramatic continued public hearing for Berkshire Aviation's quest to build the hangars for some of the 50 airplanes now tied down outside, and to give the company a way to make more money.

At $400 per month, each of the 18 bays would generate roughly $86,000 per year, according to Berkshire Aviation attorney Lori Robbins.

But not everyone thinks this is good. They are mostly the airport's neighbors, concerned about ruined views, an increase in noise and air traffic, the possible environmental impact of the plans, and of the airport's 86 years on land closely tied to the local water supply. The airport was built on what is now a water quality protection district.

Last week one neighbor asked the board to attach conditions to the permit, including an environmental analysis and a switch to unleaded fuel. Marc Fasteau is concerned that elevated lead levels at several homes in the area — including his — might be connected to the airport.

"There's no lead," Jacobs said. "It's an obfuscation [by neighbors]. We've had the ground tested, the river tested ... you've got to have it tested all the time."

Stanton asked to see those results. Jacobs said he would provide them.

Lead emissions from small aircraft pose a problem the Federal Aviation Administration is currently working to solve.

But Robbins said the town's water department supports the new plans, saying it is safer for the aquifer to have airplanes on a concrete floor rather than tied to the ground.

And soil engineer Ralph Stanton told the board floodplain soils are at least 200 feet away from the location of the proposed hangars.

In response to neighbor complaints, that location was just moved to where an old hangar now sits.

And Stanton, who said he had learned to fly at the airport, said he "appreciates" it, and said he understood the financial challenges faced by it.

"I think we're lucky to have an airport of that size," he added.

And Jacobs said building these hangars would not only get airplanes "out of the snow and the rain," but solve other, more serious problems, like one that happened a couple weeks ago: vandalism.

"We had two airplanes that were basically destroyed," he said.

Jacobs said he's not hiding anything, and he doesn't "want to change anything," and that this whole controversy has "beaten down" an organization known for its community support and involvement.

Stanton said he understood, but there were still plenty of considerations such as the lead issue.

"It's important to have a conversation," he said. "I think there's a middle place."

The plans' opponents did not speak, and while there was a little grumbling, the mood was better than any yet during these hearings. Jacobs was able to really let it all out.

"I feel that we have suffered a lot of abuse," he said.

"Oh come on," said a chorus of airport neighbors, who had once again packed the room.

Reach staff writer Heather Bellow at 413-329-6871.

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