JWA hangar project held

A proposal to build a luxury corporate jet hangar at John Wayne Airport has been delayed.

Although Newport Beach-based Legacy Aviation never officially submitted a plan, the company placed the project on hold from its end, Costa Mesa city officials said Monday.

Calls to Richard M. Janisse, executive vice president of Legacy Aviation, were not returned.

Legacy Aviation introduced its project to the Costa Mesa City Council during a study session earlier this month.

Janisse told the council the project would bring more than $300,000 in property taxes to Costa Mesa and $1.7 million to the county, which owns and operates JWA.

It’s not clear why Legacy Aviation placed the project on hold, but the proposal was met with hurdles from the beginning.

Although Janisse argued otherwise, the proposal appeared to initiate the groundwork for a possible expansion of the airport’s footprint, something surrounding cities and neighbors are united against.

Councilman Eric Bever has said that he can’t support the project unless it’s proven that it will not expand the footprint of the airport.

The board of AirFair, a group committed to blocking any expansion at JWA, voted unanimously against Legacy Aviation’s proposal.

And Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach wrote a recent op-ed piece in the Daily Pilot opposing Legacy’s proposal.

“I don’t know what to say,” Moorlach said Monday. “It just seems to me that they drove into a neighborhood they didn’t understand and probably didn’t have the right tour guides. And if you go to the wrong neighborhood, you could get hurt. They were probably told it’s going to be a really difficult process based on just the emotions that [are] sort of pent up and so putting it on hold might be a good idea.”