At first glance, a pilot unfamiliar with tiny Olson Airport in rural Kane County might think he has just landed in the Twilight Zone.
The runway is much like it was 40 years ago when it was cut out of a cornfield. A World War II-vintage Stearman biplane sits in a hangar.
A closer look, however, dispels the time warp at the quiet airstrip. Expensive homes have sprouted amid nearby soybean fields. Modern airplanes line the runway–a sight that pleases yet troubles owner John Olson.
Concerned by post-Sept. 11 warnings about terrorism, Olson wants to build more hangars to protect the airplanes. But Kane County officials, with one eye on development and another on the safety of nearby residents, have rebuffed Olson’s requests, saying zoning laws prohibit building new structures on the property.
The dispute comes one year after the Federal Aviation Administration allowed small planes back in the air over the nation’s large metropolitan areas for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. About 1,600 private planes were grounded in the Chicago area.
Olson Airport, on Illinois Highway 47 in Plato Township southwest of Elgin, was just far enough from Chicago to remain open.
Olson said he is merely trying to comply with recent FAA recommendations for tighter security. The agency cited the case of a Florida teenager who stole a small airplane Jan. 5 and intentionally crashed it into a 42-story building in downtown Tampa. In May the FBI issued a warning that terrorists may be interested in using small planes for suicide attacks.
Because most of the 50 or so planes at his airport are parked in the open, Olson asked permission to construct several portable hangars. The new hangars–not unlike some older ones already covering a few aircraft–would deter someone from hot-wiring a plane and taking off, Olson said.
County officials said the zoning ordinance doesn’t allow any improvements to the property, which is zoned for farmland. To operate, Olson must obtain a special-use permit each year.
“They’re frozen in time right now,” said Phil Bus, Kane County’s director of development. “I don’t have the authority to unfreeze them or melt the ordinance.”
Bus also said some neighbors have complained about the airstrip, which could not be built as it stands today because one end is too close to Kendall Road. School buses ply that route, he said.
“The public’s health, safety and welfare is what the zoning ordinance is designed to protect,” Bus said.
He suggested Olson come up with other ways to safeguard the planes.
Olson denies the airport is a sore spot with nearby homeowners.
“We try to keep a good-neighbor policy,” he said. “If I’m out plowing snow off the runway, I’ll try and do some driveways too.”
He believes officials are more concerned about the sensitivities of not-in-my-backyard-type residents than with users of the airstrip.
“They just don’t like airports,” Olson said. “They just wish to make it difficult for us to survive here.”
Some who live nearby say the airport is not a problem, that it was there first.
“I moved out here for the privacy and for how secluded it was,” said Dave Schuber, who lives on a leafy cul-de-sac. “I’d much rather have that airport than a subdivision.”
Current development in the area pales compared with what looms on the horizon. William Morse, a County Board member, said Elgin is likely to annex the eastern portion of Plato Township, a few miles east of the airport.
“We will see massive encroachment in the next three years on that area,” Morse said. “Probably by 2020 we will see an additional 10,000 people.”
For now, Olson and pilots who use the airport say the key issue for the county should be security, not a hassle over zoning.
Although the 375,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association contends that general aviation aircraft do not represent the same terrorism threat as airliners, a spokesman said the group would encourage the county to allow Olson to lock planes in hangars.
“We’re in the business of trying to see that airports continue to exist. [Nationally] we’re losing one every two or three weeks,” said Warren Morningstar. “We’d like to see anything done that can improve airports and make them more usable.”
The Illinois Department of Transportation has asked operators of the state’s 400 private airstrips to review security procedures.
“Prior to Sept. 11, everything new in aviation had been based on safety,” said Brad Clearwater, aviation services manager for IDOT’s division of aeronautics. “Now we’re in a transition toward more concerns about security.”
Security wasn’t much of a concern in the early 1960s when Olson’s father, Paul, a former TWA pilot, bought the farm and carved the runway out of an 80-acre cornfield.
It soon became a “hobby that got out of control,” said Olson, 41, who learned to fly at age 16 and took over the airport about 10 years ago.
But Olson said he does it for love, not profit.
“Running an airport is not a moneymaking proposition,” he said. Small private strips can’t compete with municipally owned airports.
So anything he can do to enhance the security of the airplanes and protect them from the weather–another benefit of the hangars–is vital to staying in business, he said.
Olson said it would be an uphill fight to get the airstrip rezoned or obtain a variance.
“The money and time to change this may not be worth it,” he said.
From his runway, Olson can point to Elgin only a few miles away and acknowledge the inevitable.
“I guess we can see our days are numbered here,” he said, “maybe 20 years down the road.”
