Organizers Deliver 15,200 Signatures Against Hanscom Jet Hangars

Climate organizers marched to the Massachusetts State House on Thursday, Nov. 12, and delivered a petition they said now carries more than 15,200 signatures asking Gov. Maura Healey to stop 17 proposed Hanscom Field hangars for private jets at the Massport airport in Bedford.

CBS Boston reported that the petition asks the administration to reject the project outright. Healey’s office had not issued a public response by Thursday evening, the station said, after WBZ requested comment.

The demonstration began around noon outside 53 State Street in downtown Boston and continued with a walk to the governor’s office, according to the event listing posted by 350 Mass, which helped publicize the rally. Speakers included Sabine von Mering of 350 Mass and Alex Chatfield of the Stop Private Jet Expansion coalition, both of whom also spoke to CBS Boston. Organizers said the target of the financial-district rally was Jeffrey Leerink of Leerink Partners, whom they describe as a developer behind the hangar plan; CBS Boston described the building as the workplace of one of the project’s chief investors.

The project, formally listed in the state’s Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act docket as L.G. Hanscom Field North Airfield Development, EEA No. 16654, is proposed by North Airfield Ventures and Runway Realty Ventures. The official MEPA project page places the site at 154 Hartwell Road in Bedford and identifies a land transfer or easement involving Massport as a required agency action. Plans call for 17 new hangars and additional jet-fuel storage at the civil airport, which also spans parts of Concord, Lincoln and Lexington, CommonWealth Beacon has reported.

What opponents said, and what a state-cited study found

Von Mering told CBS Boston the proposal would wipe out progress communities have already made on climate. “We really want to do what needs to be done to address the climate crisis, and to then see something like this in our neighborhood go up, which basically erases all our wins on climate action. It’s just heartbreaking,” she said.

Opponents told the station the hangars would generate at least 6,000 additional private-jet flights a year. Chatfield said those flights “will create an additional 150,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, which is a staggering amount, and would really set back Massachusetts’ progress on climate action by years.” Those flight and emissions figures are the coalition’s account of the project’s impact. A Cambridge consulting firm, Industrial Economics, Inc., reached the same 150,000-metric-ton estimate in an analysis that Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper cited when she sent the developers back for more review, CommonWealth Beacon reported in May. The firm found the project would raise emissions by roughly that amount each year, the equivalent of 35,000 cars, and pushed back on the developers’ claim that new hangars would reduce greenhouse gases overall, the outlet said.

Tepper found the companies’ draft environmental impact report “inadequate” in June 2024 and required a supplemental report, CommonWealth Beacon reported. The official MEPA docket lists a draft environmental impact report certificate issued on June 21, 2024. In that earlier review, regulators also questioned the developers’ emphasis on cutting so-called ferry flights — empty repositioning trips made when a plane cannot be stored at Hanscom — saying the number of those flights “appears minimal,” which “puts into question the purpose and need for the project,” according to the Beacon’s account of the decision. Nearly all of about 1,500 comment letters on the project opposed it, particularly over greenhouse-gas emissions, the same account of Tepper’s determination said.

The filing is late, and a date still has not been set

More than two years after that certificate, the supplemental report still has not been filed. Rick Muse, the director of operations for the development proposal, told the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission last month that the team was “not exactly sure when we will be filing the response” and that he would provide an update toward the end of the first quarter of next year, CBS Boston reported, citing meeting records. The advisory commission, made up of representatives from the surrounding towns, had asked for a presentation before the filing, the station said.

That uncertainty continues a pattern documented earlier this year. Developers had aimed to file in June 2026 after earlier target dates in late 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 slipped, CommonWealth Beacon and The Concord Bridge reported in May, based on Massport emails and an interview with Muse. At that time, Muse said the June date would “most likely shift” and that he did not yet have a new target. The same reporting described other complications, including state concern about midland sedge, a rare plant on the site, and the developers’ effort to line up hangar tenants so the environmental filing would match expected operations.

Massport, which also operates Boston Logan International Airport, has argued that added hangar space at Hanscom is needed to relieve pressure at Logan and to meet demand for business aviation, CommonWealth Beacon reported. The protest on Thursday did not resolve that dispute. It did make clear that opponents intend to keep the project in front of the governor even while the revised environmental paperwork remains unfiled.

By the numbers: a petition that has grown since 2023

The signatures dropped at the State House on Thursday are not a new campaign. The 350 Mass event listing said the petition now has more than 15,200 signatures, “up from 10,000 petition signatures since October, 2023.” That is an increase of 5,200 signatures, or 52%, a TBR calculation from those organizer figures. CBS Boston independently described the total as more than 15,000 signatures from residents who want the proposal “fully nixed.”

Those names now sit with the governor’s office as Healey’s administration continues to handle statewide climate policy through the cabinet-level climate post she created in 2023. The governor named Aladdine Joroff as climate chief earlier this week, succeeding Melissa Hoffer. Thursday’s petition does not, by itself, approve or reject a hangar. Under MEPA, the developers still have to file a supplemental report that addresses the deficiencies Tepper identified, and Massport still has a land-use role recorded on the official docket. Until that filing appears, the 17-hangar plan remains a proposal that state reviewers have already sent back once, that surrounding towns are still waiting to examine, and that organizers say more than 15,200 people have now asked the governor to stop.

Hanscom Field is a local fight with statewide climate implications, and it is being watched in Massachusetts communities far from Bedford’s runways because the state has set legally binding emissions limits. Whether the supplemental environmental report arrives in the first quarter of 2027, as Muse suggested, or slips again will determine the next formal opportunity for towns, state agencies and the public to test the developers’ claims against the emissions findings Tepper already put on the record.

Sources

• CBS Boston: Climate activists protest proposed expansion at Massachusetts airport
• 350 Mass: Stop Private Jet Expansion Rally, Nov. 12, 2026
• CommonWealth Beacon: Controversial private jet expansion proposal at Hanscom faces setbacks
• Massachusetts MEPA Environmental Monitor: L.G. Hanscom Field North Airfield Development, EEA No. 16654