We have reported several times over the past few months that Fishers city officials were deep in talks with the Indianapolis Airport Authority over developing land currently unused at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport. The facility runs along the area of 96th Street, 106th Street, Hague Road and Allisonville Road.
The announcement today that the Indy Airport Authority has voted in favor of a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Fishers is a big step toward doing something important with the currently unused land on the airport complex. Once the Fishers City Council gives its expected stamp of approval, the next step is to develop a master plan for development.
This marks a major turning point in how local Fishers elected officials view Metropolitan Airport. Fishers is a city as of 2015, but as a town, several past town council members, including Scott Faultless, Tim Lima and Mike Colby, had voiced a strong opinion that the airport should be moved to pave the way for other development on the land. There were some efforts made to identify new locations in northern Hamilton and southern Madison counties, but nothing ever happened. Once it became clear the airport was here to stay, Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness began exploring new ways for the city to develop parts of the airport property.
Keep an eye on future announcements of economic development along the airport property in the near future. There have been strong indications some manufacturing firms have expressed an interest in locating there. Fishers has very little manufacturing now, so any movement in that direction would enhance the diversity of the jobs mix in the city.
Any development would enhance the 96th Steet corridor on the Fishers (north) side of that major thoroughfare. And that’s a good thing for the city.
The memorandum of understanding would open up the areas
shaded in red (above) for economic development.
“And that’s a good thing for the city.”
It may be a good thing for “the city”, meaning the City Council, who get more property tax dollars to give away to the next pay-to-player in line, but it is not a good thing for the residents of Fishers. It will not be a good thing for those who live near there and will have to deal with increased traffic and construction to “develop” that area. It will not be a good thing for all Fishers residents who have to pony up to pay some kind of Tax Increment Financing bond to buy the land from the airport in order to give it away to developers. It will not be a good thing for the homes in the southwest corner of that area that get commandeered by eminent domain in the name of “progress”. It will not be a good thing for the Fishers airport, as it has to give up a significant portion of the right-of-way airspace (which, I presume leads to safer takeoffs and landings), to be followed very quickly by the airport itself.
Does anyone believe the airport is not next to go? What then sets Fishers apart from anywhere else? The idea that there was a regional airport close by, even though I’ve never used it and never intend to, was just one of the great things about Fishers that attracted me 8 years ago when I moved in. It’s not the same place anymore, and, frankly, I’m not impressed any longer.
When do we say enough? When do we stop cutting down every tree and bush that is not on someone’s front lawn in order to put up 3 and 4 story apartment complexes that then sit half-empty? When do we stop sacrificing our future, and our children’s future, mortgaged on the backs of 30-year bonds and unfunded giveaways, so that construction companies can maintain full employment today and campaign donations can continue to flow? When do we pick our heads up out of the sand and look around, to realize that this can’t continue with such unrealistic assumptions about that nebulous “future”?
When do we stand up and shout STOP?
Sincerely disappointed,
Steve Mathys
Fishers resident since 2007