Town will Shut Down 81-Year-Old Trinca Airport It Bought for $2.3M

An 81-year-old airport in Green Township where planes take off and land on a turf runway is shutting down on Sept. 1.

The township’s governing committee has voted to close Trinca Airport, which the Sussex County municipality bought for $2.28 million 18 years ago, and continues to review possible future uses for the 121-acre site, officials said Friday.

Pilots who sought to save the airport are expressing dismay at the impending shutdown.

“It’s a little piece of history that’s going to disappear,” said Damian DelGaizo, owner of the nearby Andover Flight Academy.

The Green Township Committee began holding public discussions on the airport’s future in 2018, about a year after the pilot of an amateur-built aircraft was killed in a crash at the end of the runway. It voted 5-0 to close it, effective Sept. 1, at a meeting four months ago.

Green Mayor Margaret Phillips, who serves on the committee, said financial and safety considerations drove the decision.

“We understand the history and nostalgia that goes along with that property. That doesn’t help our tax base,” Phillips told NJ Advance Media.

Phillips said Green Township receives zero revenues from Trinca Airport, which is one of 42 public-use airports in New Jersey and does not charge for flying in or out. Annual expenses are $15,000, including approximately $6,000 for a part-time airport manager and maintenance, such as cutting grass on the turf runway.

While tie-downs are available for any pilot wishing to store their plane - there used to be a hangar, but it was removed in 2009 - the airport does not offer fuel and it has been at least several years since anyone rented an anchor, Phillips said.

A bigger financial concern is the “unknown future cost to taxpayers,” Phillips said, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or Department of Homeland Security ordering improvements.

“The expense to make-over the airport would be huge. There’s no water or septic. There’s nothing there,” Phillips said, adding that the lone building services mostly as a storage shed.

However, the airport property is potentially lucrative to Green Township, though Phillips said municipal officials are not considering selling any of the three lots making up the 121 acres.

Asked about options, Phillips said one company has expressed interest in leasing land and installing solar panels, while others have proposed a medicinal marijuana facility.

“There is nothing definitive about that property. The only thing that is definitive is, the town committee wanted to close the airport,” Phillips said.

DelGaizo said the airport is used by flight schools, since learning how to land on a soft field is among the requirements in getting a pilot’s license.

It is also popular among pilots of antique planes, such as World War II-era Piper Cubs, that “fare better on grass,” he added.

He said that, even before the airport opened in 1939, it was used unofficially by air mail pilots.

“It really is a shame,” DelGaizo said of losing the airport.

Trinca Airport long has been a source of debate and discussion in Green Township, a rural municipality that is home to 3,400.

It was under private ownership in the 1990s when residents opposed a proposal to pave and expand the runway in order to attract corporate jets and even commercial aircraft.

After the N.J. Department of Transportation blocked the proposal, the owner sought to close the airport and build 225 houses, including 21 that would have been set aside for low-income families.

Green Township headed off that possibility by buying the airport in 2002, for $2.28 million.

The New Jersey Aviation Association, which supported the failed expansion in the 1990s and testified last year in opposition to closing the airport, expressed regret at the outcome Friday.

“Green Township as the owner of this public-use airport has the right to close the airport. It is unfortunate though for general aviation that this basic and historic transport facility in New Jersey will close,” said the association’s executive director, Suzanne Solberg Nagle.

Nagle said that public-use airports in New Jersey declined from 82 in 1950, to 42 last year and that the remaining airports deserve additional funding from the state’s Transportation Trust Fund.

A public use airport is an airport available for use by the general public without a requirement for prior approval of the airport owner or operator, she explained.

Nagle said that the state DOT has authority over public-use airports and that the commissioner “should exercise this authority when necessary to preserve airports and meet the needs of 21st century aviation.”

The runway at Trinca Airport is open from sunrise to sunset, seven days per week. It is among at least seven public-use airports in New Jersey with turf runways that remain in use, Nagle said.

When it is snowing, as was the case on Saturday, pilots typically use skis with their landing gear, the mayor said.

The airport’s entrance was gated around 1 p.m. Friday and no planes were in sight. The part-time airport manager was not in.

Asked about the decision to delay the airport’s closure until Sept. 1, Phillips said that was the earliest it could be shut down without requiring the township to repay a portion of the state grant it received in 2010 to study airport improvements.

“That’s why we have delayed the closing,” she said.

DelGaizo said he is looking forward to a final summer at the airport.

“I’ll use it right up until the day it closes,” he said.

Rob Jennings may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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