For decades, the Lake in the Hills Airport has been little more than a sleepy airstrip hemmed in by the growing communities of Crystal Lake and Algonquin.
In recent years, residents who live near the airport have grown weary of public pronouncements that the Village of Lake in the Hills, owner of the field, plans a $20 million project to upgrade the facility.
Plans call for building a second runway to handle more traffic, including twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft and small jet-powered planes.
Opponents say that expanding the airport would bring unwanted noise and air-quality problems to their tranquil neighborhoods, while increasing the number of flights would pose a safety risk to thousands of residents.
Residents in nearby subdivisions already complain of being awakened in the middle of the night by airplanes and of having planes fly so close overhead while landing that they can see the pilots’ faces.
With a larger airport, they say, the problems would get only worse.
“It becomes more than a nuisance to some of them,” said Crystal Lake Mayor Robert Wagner. “Some of these people fear for their safety.”
Algonquin residents last week submitted to their Village Board a petition bearing 233 signatures opposed to the expansion plan. The Crystal Lake City Council formally voiced its opposition earlier this month.
Also, some residents have formed committees to study the issue.
Their concerns were driven home in dramatic fashion Sunday night, when a single-engine aircraft with six people aboard crashed into a home in Crystal Lake.
Though no one was killed, the accident rekindled the fears of many about what could happen if Lake in the Hills goes ahead with its ambitious airport expansion plan.
Wagner said Tuesday that he plans to direct Crystal Lake staffers to research and draft an airport-specific anti-noise ordinance, which could be a bargaining chip toward getting a more “neighborhood-friendly” expansion plan.
“Hopefully, by drafting this noise ordinance, we can bring Lake in the Hills to the table to negotiate some modifications to their expansion plan,” Wagner said. “We’re still extending the olive branch and not the sword.”
One possibility would be limiting takeoffs and landings to certain hours of the day, Wagner said.
But Scott Berg, a Lake in the Hills trustee and proponent of expanding the airport, said homeowners in Algonquin and Crystal Lake should remember that the airport has been in its current location since 1952, long before any of the subdivisions that currently ring the field.
“Unfortunately, those residents were sold a bill of goods,” Berg said. “They were told the airport wasn’t going to expand and that it would eventually go away, but we are not going away.”
Berg said he is not concerned with Crystal Lake’s proposed noise ordinance. Approval of such an ordinance would be a futile gesture, he said.
“It’s not going to stop anything,” Berg said.
Airport and village officials long have promoted their expansion plan as a way of not just fueling economic growth and turning the airport into a transportation hub for the county but improving safety and reducing noise.
They have argued that building a new runway on what is largely vacant mining and industrial land would divert air traffic from the east-west runway that abuts nearby subdivisions in Crystal Lake.
The existing facility’s east-west runway is 50 feet wide by 3,802 feet long. It would be moved 500 feet to the east and enlarged to 75 feet wide by 5,000 feet long. The proposed second runway would run north and south and measure 75 feet wide by 3,400 feet long.
Residents in Crystal Lake, Algonquin and Lake in the Hills have risen in opposition, saying the current facility has too much air traffic and produces too much noise.
The proposed north-south runway would not reduce noise and safety problems but divert them from Crystal Lake to Algonquin, some Algonquin residents maintain.
“We don’t have the north-south runway, but you can bet that if they build it, we are going to feel the brunt of it,” said Mario DeGenova, an Algonquin resident who organized the anti-expansion petition drive. “We would be getting the same thing Crystal Lake is getting now, and we don’t want that.”
Lake in the Hills is conducting an environmental study as a step toward securing federal funds, which officials are counting on to make up 90 percent of the project’s cost. The study is expected to be completed within the 18 months.
The village owns the airport’s current 26 acres, but the expansion eventually could involve up to 300 acres total, including property used by the McHenry County Conservation District.
If the proposal goes forward as now envisioned, a section of Pyott Road would have to be moved or an overpass built, and a popular bicycle trail would have to be relocated.
While traveling on Pyott Road on May 13, a truck was struck by a small airplane flying too low as it came in for a landing. The aircraft flipped over and was demolished. No one in the plane or the truck was seriously injured.
The airport is home to about 140 aircraft, mostly single-engine planes. It handles about 65,000 takeoffs and landings a year.
