In a 4-1 vote, the Pitkin County Board of Commissioners voted to amend the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport planning document, shifting the runway 80 feet west instead of moving the taxiway 80 feet east.

The change applies to the airport’s future Airport Layout Plan (ALP), a conceptual planning document that guides federal funding investments. An up-to-date ALP is a Federal Aviation Administration requirement.

“I think it’s been shown that the only fiscally responsible thing to do is to use funding that’s available from the FAA,” said Commissioner Steve Child. “The purpose of the FAA funding is to improve airport runways, taxiways, and the safety of the airport. That’s what that money is there for. That’s what we want to use it for.”

The county has worked for years to submit a new ALP to the FAA that incorporates input from the Common Ground Recommendations — the airport goals report from the citizen Airport Vision Committee.

The county held a special meeting Wednesday to consider amendments to the Common Ground Recommendations ALP — which the FAA considered in January and handed back to the county, the airport’s sponsor, with some edits.

The main point of contention within the community is that it, like every other draft ALP since 2012, includes widening the separation between the taxiway and runway centerlines to 400 feet, meeting the full FAA design standards for the airport’s size and allowing planes with a 95- to 118-foot wingspan access to the airport once again.

The amended ALP includes shifting the runway, the potential to extend the west-side taxiway, eliminating a midfield crossing in the “high energy zone” of the runway, and extending access to the departure of the runway.

County Manager Jon Peacock also presented the board with a variety of financial models on the debt the county could incur without federal, or even state, funding to help with the hundreds of millions of dollars in airfield and landside reconstruction.

Over 30 people spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. Commenters from the local business and aviation community largely supported the amendments to the ALP, while a stronghold of locals concerned about the prospect of larger planes objected to what they viewed as kowtowing to the FAA.

Commissioner Francie Jacober stressed her and Commissioner Patti Clapper’s recent trip to Washington D.C. as reasoning to support the amended ALP. Every federal official they met with told them that the FAA will not accept an ALP that does not widen the taxiway/runway separation to full compliance with Airport Design Group III — 400 feet.

“It’s our fiduciary duty as the commissioners to do the most responsible thing for our enterprise at the airport,” she said. “And that is to move forward now and accept the federal money and fix the layout of the airfield.”

Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury cast the sole nay vote but said she only did so to reflect the community tension over the topic.

“I don’t think I’d be prudent as an elected if I advocated playing chicken with the FAA,” she said. “I don’t think the power is in our court in this relationship. And I think, in particular, the condition of the airport doesn’t give us a whole lot of negotiating room anymore.”

Altering the ALP to plan for a runway shift and not a taxiway shift is meant to save the airport time and money, as the runway is in desperate need of total reconstruction.

The proposed amendments passed the Airport Advisory Board 6-1 in March, then on first reading with the BOCC in April.

Shifting the runway instead of the taxiway is an answer to the FAA mandate that moving the taxiway would prompt the reconstruction and relocation of the Air Traffic Control Tower, likely to the other side of Colorado Highway 82 over 100 feet tall, and paid for from the county’s Airport Enterprise Fund (revenue earned in the airport must only fund airport works, and vice versa).

It is the greatest departure from the Common Ground Recommendations, which called for a taxiway shift, but consultant Brad Jacobsen of Jacobsen Daniels said the reason to shift the taxiway is now moot that the runway must be fully reconstructed, no matter its location.

Amory Lovins, president of nonprofit Aspen Fly Right and most vocal critic of wider wingspans at the airport, pushed back that either ALP — runway or taxiway shift — ascribed to the biggest goals of the Common Ground Recommendations: safety, reduction pollutant emissions by at least 30%, manage enplanement growth, and reduce noise by at least 30%.

Airport Director Dan Bartholomew said that if the airport is to have a hope of meeting those goals, particularly the climate-centered goals, then changes made in the amended ALP are necessary.

With approval from the board, county and airport staff will now prepare the amended ALP submission for the FAA.

Design and engineering planning is still to come, as ALPs are only meant to show the FAA that the airport sponsor has considered safety and access plans at the facility.