City Council Minutes 1983 07 19 - Laserfiche WebLink

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7/19/83 Page -3- the Watkins-Bennett alternative to the Arsenal site, but did not think this was the only alternative. Are willing to cooper- ate with the new Denver administration, other cities and counties to select such a site and to build an airport. But will not allow the site to be built on the Arsenal, which is too small, too heavily contaminated, and much too close to urban and heavily populated centers. The major decision of the DRCOG Board must be sound regional planning, and to recognize that there are internal problems with the Arsenal location, i.e. the determined opposition of Adams County and its municipalities probably will prevent its use and at least will impose on all concerned enormous uncertainty, delays and costs. Finally to decide that serious attention must be given to identifying an accept- able alternative site. Mr. Cutler reviewed the two sites that were examined. Total costs for which the public sector will be respon- sible - DRCOG study says that the cost differ- ence of the two sites will not be substantial - 2.4 billion dollars for the Arsenal site ver- sus 2.6 billion dollars for the Bennett site. These figures do not include several very significant public costs and if these were taken into consideration they have found it would be cheaper to build a new airport at a new site than to expand onto the Arsenal. One of the major costs not included was de- contamination - for every dollar more than 181 million dollars that it costs to clean up the Arsenal, the Arsenal site would be that much more expensive than the Bennett site. The containment alone will cost 150 million or more, so the 181 million is grossly understated. A second substantial public cost not included in the estimate is the millions of dollars required to relocate all of the people's resi- dences that will have to be moved if the air- port is expanded onto the Arsensal and to mitigate the noise impact on those who will not be moved. Lastly the costs to Denver of not redeveloping existing stapleton Airport The DRCOG Consultants have estimated these costs to be 240 million dollars from the sale of the land to commercial developers and the accounting firm has estimated the annual costs of 4 gallon net property tax revenues to Denver would be approximate 60 million dollars.