The province asked us to create a association of municipalities in our area, which could support a small airport. An airport association was created involving the villages of Acme, Beiseker, and Irricana plus the Municipal District of Rocky View (now, Rocky View County). After much planning and negotiation, a site was chosen for the new airport and the Association became the Airport Commission.
Under the leadership of the provincial Transportation Department, the new airport was constructed and an AVPA was created for it. The Airport Vicinity Protection Area was designed to make sure that all buildings and all developments around the airport would not interfere with the airport's operation nor would the airport interfere with that development. Any development in the AVPA and not following its guidelines had no recourse in the case of a disagreement.
The new airport became home to recreational flyers, who built small hangars for their airplanes and enjoyed the camaraderie of the small airport group. It was decided that the Village of Beiseker would provide the day to day maintenance for the airport, and each of the other members of would contribute a small amount supporting that operation.
Each village and the M.D. gave the airport commission a very small amount of money to accomplish this. Those funds, and the money collected from the leaseholders, contributed to the maintenance and operation of the airport. The airport was still located with the Municipal District, and therefore all development permits and tax collection was to be done by them. In those early days, the Village's contribution to maintenance and operation costs at the airport equal to about one half of 1% of Beiseker's yearly budget.
After several years, disagreements and legal challenges between the Association, the Municipal District, and one of the tenants at the airport forced the other three members of the Association to withdraw from the commission. This left Beiseker on its own to maintain and operate the airport.
The airport sputtered along for many years seeing little development and almost no maintenance. The village made little investment into the airport, but volunteers stepped up to keep the airport operational. Eventually, the difficult tenant left the airport and operations there began to improve.
The provincial government eventually asked the village of Beiseker if they would be interested in taking over ownership of the airport. Village council indicated they would not be willing to take over the airport, until the neglected runway had been resurfaced. The province agreed and did resurface the runway and pave the main taxiways. Rocky View County also agreed to provide a portion of the property tax collected at the airport back to the village for operations and maintenance.
The future of this important Beiseker facility was looking quite positive!
An airport is an important facility to any community it serves. Just like an arena, a swimming pool or a library, an airport adds to the fabric of any municipality lucky enough to have one! When Beiseker was approved to get an airport, many municipalities were very jealous! Ours was one of the last constructed under the program. Beiseker has continued operating and maintaining the airport which does bring in some commerce into the village at very little cost. In fact the cost to taxpayers to operate the airport has been almost nil for many years.
At present we have a skydiving/parachute facility, a pilot training school, numerous recreational aviation hangars and a café at our airport. Much of the normal maintenance is still done by volunteers, saving the village more money.
Presently, the Village and the hangar owners are in discussion now to officially subdivide the airport lot into separate hangar lots then explore the possibility of selling some of the lots to hangar owners. The runways, taxiways and other areas will still be owned and operated by the Village of Beiseker. I support this move, and I hope an agreement will be reached in the near future. Stay tuned!
