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Residents living near a planned new aircraft hangar at the New Bedford Regional Airport plan to oppose its construction at a City Council committee meeting Tuesday night.
Councilors Leo Choquette, Ian Abreu, and James Roy filed a motion last month requesting that the city explore alternative locations for the proposed hangar.
In February, the Planning Board approved the proposal by Providence-based Hangars 4 Planes LLC, the developer working on behalf of 5 Hangar Trust, to build a hangar with access from Old Plainville Road. The proposed hangar is expected to house five single-engine private aircraft for personal use.
Residents on the dead-end section of the road most directly affected by the project say they’re concerned about increased traffic. But the city says new traffic would be minimal.
The residents also complain that almost none of them received notice of the proposal before the February meeting. The Light has confirmed that their properties do not appear on the city’s list of abutters who received notices.
“Normally, when we have these kinds of issues, the planning department would mail out alerts to the people who live in the vicinity of where they wanted to build it,” said Ward 1 Councilor Leo Choquette. “So now a lot of people were left out of this whole process, and they found out about it either the day of or the day before.”
Of the 88 addresses present on the abutters’ list, only 25 belonged to residents living near the airport, and just one was on the stretch of Old Plainville Road that would be used to access the hangar. The remaining addresses included city properties, businesses and religious organizations.
On June 11, 2025, the Finance Committee voted to recommend the airport lease to the full City Council, and on June 26 the City Council voted by voice vote to authorize execution of the lease.
Choquette voted in favor of the lease. “That airport has every right to have a hangar there,” he said. “But the reason I raised a stink is because, procedurally, the laws were violated. These people were not notified about it. So now that creates a completely new issue.”
The lease for the hangar was signed in July 2025 between the New Bedford Regional Airport Commission and trustees of the 5 Hangar Trust, a Florida-based financing trust assembled by Hangars 4 Planes. It covers a 28,160-square-foot parcel. The agreement begins with a five-year term and can be renewed for up to 50 years.
The proposed hangar will include a parking area, water supply and septic system.
In its filing with the Planning Board, Hangars 4 Planes argued the project aligned with both the city’s master plan and the airport’s vision by helping meet demand for space tied to the “increased volume of air traffic that is projected to continually increase over time.”
An almost quiet road
Mark Martins lives a baseball throw from the airport fence. From the mailbox at the end of his driveway, he can see metal framing for the proposed hangar stacked beyond.
Still, Martins said he never received notice of the February Planning Board meeting on the project. He only heard about it a few days beforehand from a neighbor on Shawmut Avenue who had gotten the mailing.
“They didn’t want us to get involved because they knew we would fight,” Martins said. “So they slid it right under our eyes.”
Martins said he and several neighbors logged onto the Zoom meeting to voice their concerns, but with only a few minutes allotted for public comment, he left feeling the Planning Board had not seriously considered them.
Old Plainville Road residents’ main concern is how traffic from the project will affect their dead-end road, now mostly used by neighbors walking dogs, kids riding bikes and the occasional driver who mistakenly enters before turning around and leaving.
“We have nothing else over here,” said Kim Booker, who lives with her husband Bruce on Shawmut Avenue, about a five-minute walk from Martins’ home. Booker said she often brings her nephews to Old Plainville Road to ride bikes and play. “We have no sidewalks. We have no parks. We have nowhere else for the kids to go.”
“There’s going to be more cars,” Martins said, “and they’re going to be coming right through our neighborhood.”
But the city says the new traffic will be minimal.
Visits to the hangar are expected to occur about three times a week, and once a day during the summer, according to a summary of the discussion at the February meeting.
CAB Engineering Solutions, hired by Hangars 4 Planes, requested a waiver from the usual requirement for a traffic impact and access study. In the filing, the company stated that “all traffic will access the hangar through existing airport entrances and the new entrance located at Old Plainville Road.”
In a statement to The Light, the Planning Board said it requires traffic studies when proposed projects are expected to generate a “heavy increase in automobiles,” as with the Chipotle on Kings Highway and the Starbucks on Coggeshall Street.
“The hangar project at the Regional Airport will not result in a heavy influx of automobiles, thus a traffic study was not requested,” the statement said.
Not the first time
Hangars 4 Planes already has another project pending on the south side of the airport: a smaller two-bay airplane hangar that the Planning Board approved in November 2022.
New Bedford Public Information Officer Jonathan Darling said the hangar has not been built, though it remains fully permitted and the developer can still move forward with it. Airport Manager Scott Servis said Hangars 4 Planes is not currently paying rent on that parcel.
Unlike the current proposal near Old Plainville Road, the 2022 project on Downey Street included a traffic and access study. Engineers estimated the hangar would employ five workers and generate about eight vehicle trips per day, concluding the added traffic would have a “negligible” impact.
“But there’s no houses on that side,” said Jessica Bregoli, who lives near Martins on Old Plainville Road. “It’s all commercial there.”
“Here, it’s going to affect our quality of life,” Martins said.
Leon Shabbot, a representative of Hangars 4 Planes, said he believes the opposite is true. He said the hangar will ultimately benefit nearby residents by acting as a sound barrier between homes and the runway.
“Whether they know it or not, they want this building,” Shabbot said. “This building will help their life, not hurt it.”
Shabbot said he did not know residents on Old Plainville Road had not been notified about the project until he heard complaints during the February meeting, and he called the situation unfortunate.
“As far as what happens inside that airport fence, is zoned for aviation activities,” which include buildings to house aircraft, he said.
“And so, although this seems a little difficult for the citizenry to understand,” he said, “they have no say what happens inside that airport fence.”
Frustrations reach City Hall
Bruce Booker was not surprised when Mark Martins knocked on his door with news of the hangar proposal. “Here we go again,” he remembered thinking.
Booker’s family has lived along Shawmut Avenue and Old Plainville Road since the 1940s, when New Bedford Regional Airport was established as a military field. Growing up, Booker said the airport felt like a friendly neighbor. “But they haven’t been for years,” he said.
Fifty years later, Booker still lives beside the airport. Now, he said, it has become “a playground for the rich.”
Residents along Shawmut Avenue and Old Plainville Road said they have watched airport expansion plans move forward around them while feeling shut out of the process.
Martins and Bregoli have collected nearly 60 signatures from residents opposing the project and are now considering hiring a lawyer to seek an injunction blocking the hangar.
“People are telling me, ‘We never heard of this,’” Martins said. “I tell them, ‘I know. Nobody did.’”
Residents’ complaints led to the April 23 motion by Councilors Choquette, Abreu, and Roy. It proposes suspending construction of the hangar until the City Council’s Special Committee on the Airport can review options that “best serve the combined interests of the Airport and the surrounding neighborhoods.”
“I’m not against progress as a city,” Choquette said. “But what I am against is when proper procedures are not followed and my constituents are left out in the cold.”
Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org.
