Despite an initial meeting with Port Metro Vancouver staff who emphasized the number of approvals the project will need, local commercial seaplane operators are proceeding with plans for a non-profit float-plane terminal in Burrard Inlet just east of Canada Place.
“The concerns aren’t insurmountable, but it’s a tall order,” port spokesman Duncan Wilson said. “Relocating one of B.C.’s busiest airports is going to require a complete assessment of safety, environmental and community impacts.”
Wilson noted that the port and Transport Canada would both want studies exploring the safety issues arising from adding float planes to an already crowded marine area that includes SeaBus transit lanes.
He said seaplane operators would also have to address such issues as a joint policy between the port and the City of Vancouver that excludes float-plane activity in the proposed location.
But the Vancouver Commercial Seaplane Operators’ Association (VCSOA) said its Harbour Hub plan hasn’t lost any momentum. The plan includes a new float-plane terminal just east side of Waterfront Station – a transit hub that includes SkyTrain, SeaBus, taxi, bus, West Coast Express and Canada Line connections.
The VCSOA initiated the plan last month after rental talks soured between float-plane operators and the developer of the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre (VHFC). The privately developed float-plane terminal immediately west of the Vancouver Convention Centre is set to open in May.
Philip Reece, a VCSOA member and director of Salt Spring Air, said the current rental cost at VHFC – which the operators say would add a $24 per-passenger fee to a round trip – can’t be absorbed by the operators and would significantly erode their customer base, particularly with non-corporate, non-government flyers.
“It wouldn’t be long before we went out of business,” he said. “So our momentum is the fact that we can’t accept that [cost] so we have nowhere else to go.”
But VHFC chairman Graham Clarke said the market projections he’s working with show customer volumes will rise, not fall. He added that, contrary to portrayals by the VCSOA, the project has some flexibility on rental discussions and the 15% return on investment it has been targeting.
“We’ve always said that these folks – our tenants – are really our business partners. And their passengers are really our customers. So we’re in the same boat. We’ve got to make it work.”
Clarke added, however, that with no tenants signed up yet and the VHFC set to open in May, he’s ready to start looking for tenants outside the VCSOA.
He said operators that don’t rent space at VHFC might find themselves without an alternative location.
“In making that decision [the operators] are pretty much deciding not to fly out of the downtown core.”
Clarke said safety concerns will stall the Harbour Hub. But they’re not the project’s only hurdle.
“It’s going to be years before the permits are in and the [approximately $12 million] cost that they think they’re going to get it for – that’s totally unrealistic.”
The VCSOA, however, is preparing for a pre-application meeting with the port.
Greg McDougall, VCSOA president and Harbour Air CEO, said it’s not clear if Harbour Air will have to vacate its temporary premises on the west side of the convention centre in May, as per an earlier arrangement. But he said the VCSOA remains optimistic it can clear the necessary hurdles by May, so that Harbour Air could move its portable temporary facility to the east side of Canada Place, as the group advances the Harbour Hub plan.
“We see no reason why we wouldn’t be able to move the temporary facility over there and then build the permanent one.”
But Wilson said timing will be too tight to assess all the concerns the project raises and added that the port won’t consider a temporary installation on that central waterfront.
“I know they’re working to a May time frame in their current location,” he said. “And the port won’t be in a position to give them an answer that quickly.”