Aircraft owners at Venice Municipal Airport (VNC) in Florida could see higher costs for hangar and tie-down space under proposed new rates.
According to local news outlet, Venice Gondolier, the Venice City Council is considering increases to T-hangar rents, tie-down fees and the airport’s fuel flowage fee. The proposed changes would be phased in over three years.
T-hangar rents have largely remained unchanged since 2007. Under the proposal, rents would increase between 53% and 147%, depending on the size and type of hangar.
The city is also proposing to change how it charges for outdoor aircraft storage. Instead of basing tie-down rates on engine size, the new system would use aircraft wingspan.
The largest aircraft—those with wingspans greater than 90 feet—would face a proposed monthly tie-down charge of $1,040. The current maximum monthly rate is $240.
The airport also wants to increase its fuel flowage fee from 5 cents to 10 cents per gallon.
Airport officials say the changes are needed to bring airport rates more in line with current costs and market rates. Venice Municipal Airport operates as an enterprise fund, meaning its expenses are paid through airport revenue rather than the city’s general fund.
The proposed increases would not happen all at once. The city plans to give airport tenants notice and allow a 30-day period for written comments before the changes take effect.
This is the problem when you don’t have regular price increases to keep up with inflation. 19 years status quo is poor rate management. You end up dropping a very unpopular bomb. Roughly every 20 years buying power with a buck decreases by half so…
Sucks but understandable. I look forward to my annual hangar increase with as much joy as a dentist visit. But it is incremental, and I can absorb it. Where the issue is is the airport authority and city of Venice dropped the ball for almost two decades and now want to make it up. Mmm, poor planning.
Private investors and predatory companies are buying up airport real estate all over FL. At our FL airport, the authority tore down three dozen servicable city owned T-hangars for a poorly planned development, gave a monopoly to Sheltair. Our T-hangar rates went up 285% in year one, now sheltair is jacking them up 10-15% per year. There is massive vacancy and many long-term tenants sold their planes, many more are planning too at or near the end of their leases. Given that the price of hangars has completely disrupted the established GA community, it’s hard not to question if this trend meets fair access provisions for the local citizens and businesses.
I’m paying what I feel to be an absurdly low land lease rate on my hangar. Granted I’m on the smallest footprint on the field, but when I “complained” to the airport manager that I wasn’t paying enough, he went back and looked at all the land leases. Come to find out the price per square foot on the land lease wasn’t equitable (the larger hangars were paying a smaller share per square foot than the smaller ones). So he leveled it out so we were all paying the same price per square foot. The result? My monthly land lease went down.
I don’t get how airports, especially ones that are county owned/operated aren’t looking at property values and realizing that annual increases need to happen to at minimum keep the funding going for proper and ongoing maintenance. This is like real estate 101.
IMHO the airports that need to do this catch up need to make it a reasonable event. Instead of doing an annual 3% to 4% increase, let everyone know that they are going to be doing some catching up and do an 8% over an extended time to soften the blow rather than just do it all at once.
Brian, We have the opposite at MKE, thr larger the building the higher the rate per square foot.