Sudbury Joins Opposition To Hanscom Private Jet Hangars

SUDBURY, MA — The Sudbury Select Board this week voted in favor of a resolution opposing the expansion of hangars at Hanscom Airfield, saying the plan to expand storage for private jets is the antithesis of Sudbury's climate goals.

Plans for the Hanscom expansion have been brewing for months, but ramped up in February when North Airfield Ventures, LLC, and Runway Realty Ventures, LLC, submitted plans for the project to state environmental regulators. The developers want to construct nearly 500,000 square-feet of hangar space for private jet storage. Plans call for 17 hangars to be built across two parcels, with the majority on a 28-acre parcel that the developers would lease from Massport.

Sudbury's Energy and Sustainability Committee in March approved a resolution opposing the project, and passed the document to the select board this week for its support.

The project would be "for the exclusive use of private luxury travel — which would result in hundreds of thousands of tons of additional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — in opposition to every climate goal that our towns, cities, the Commonwealth and the nation have set forth," the resolution says.

"[E]xpansion of private jet facilities at Hanscom Field or anywhere because such expansion is contrary to the critical and urgent greenhouse gas emission reduction and equity goals for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the realities of climate science," the resolution concludes.

The town is joining a wider coalition of groups ranging from the Sudbury Democratic Town Committee to the Sierra Club of Massachusetts asking Gov. Maura Healey to reject the proposed development.

Hanscom, which is owned by Massport and separate from the similarly named air force base, is the busiest private jet airport in New England, and the 20th busiest nationwide, according to the coalition opposed to the hangar project. Although smaller, private jets produce ten-times more carbon emissions than commercial airliners per-passenger, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.

Hanscom Airfield is located within Concord, Bedford, Lincoln and Lexington.