The Airport’s Aerobatics
The Lift Workspace, a coworking organization in Truckee, is likely here to stay — for at least another 10 years — after submitting the only lease proposal for its building within the Truckee Tahoe Airport District (TTAD). Now, it must contend with the building’s increase in rent to fair market value per Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards. And Lift is not the only tenant of the airport reckoning with raising rent. It comes as yet another hurdle for the district in its yearslong balancing act between mandates on the aviation side and its commitment to its taxpayer base.
According to TTAD Board of Directors President David Diamond, the airport is making corrections to other past leases that fell short of fair market value.
“In the past, the airport has not always made sure that its leases were market value,” Diamond said. “In some cases they were below, and in some cases they were way below market value. This board under the guidance of our general manager, we’re basically trying to clean everything up.”
As a Public Regional General Aviation airport, the TTAD is obligated to comply with the FAA and its regulations. The airport owns 2,350 acres of land, which serve both aeronautical and nonaeronautical purposes, leading to gray areas in compliance. Furthermore, as a California Special Airport District — one of only nine— TTAD receives around $9 million in taxpayer money from Placer and Nevada counties.
“The alignment of these three policy bodies (federal, state, district) to address the use of public funds and airport revenue is unique with different requirements based on a number of involved public policy and legal factors,” the airport’s general manager Robb Etnyre said.
Contrary to FAA desires, the TTAD board believes taxpayer money should serve some community benefit. Additionally, Diamond said the state of California requires the property taxes the airport receives to be invested or spent in a way that supports the public. Consequently, the TTAD and its publicly elected board walk a fine line between conforming to FAA regulations and the public purpose of an airport to serve the community.
“What’s a fair rate for a nonprofit?” Horvath wondered. “Or what’s a fair rate for maybe a for-profit organization, but one who has a lot of impact in the community?”
“Though the FAA wants airports to self-sustain, the current TTAD Board of Directors believes the taxpayer money should be spent on projects that benefit the public,” Diamond explained.
Regardless of the airport’s mission, Board Vice President Greg Horvath acknowledged how much influence and authority the airport district has because of all the land it owns and manages. Even with FAA guidelines, the board has discretion in the way it manages its property, though the FAA has shut down past TTAD initiatives.
“There’s this natural tension here where it’s the fiduciary duty of the board and the airport district to manage our budget, manage our finances as responsibly as we can,” Horvath said. “I ran on a platform of trying to do so in a way that had the most impact for the community at large, not just people who utilized the airport’s direct services. But these are the types of challenges that come out from the airport having this much authority over property and over space.”
In 2024, following an FAA inspection, the TTAD’s hand was forced. A letter of noncompliance was sent regarding the airport’s below-market price hangars and their usage. Additionally, the FAA deemed some rents to be insufficient, like that of the Truckee Donner Recreation and Parks District Bike Park. Per FAA requirements, the TTAD must charge fair market value in order to not compete with the private sector and to self-sustain its operations with minimal FAA grants. As such, the TTAD began reassessing the lease terms of its tenants.
“There is at a minimum, a sort of general effort to move rents closer to market value,” Horvath said. “Exactly how that’s going to shake out for nonprofits and other, even for-profit community impact organizations is unclear.”
While many organizations are obliged to the airport district as its tenants, the airport district is in turn under obligation to the FAA and its assurances. Etnyre addressed the FAA’s Revenue Use Policy, which instructs airports to create a self-sustaining structure through the business they conduct.
“We cannot use aviation money to subsidize non-aviation facilities. The grant assurance says you can’t do that,” Etnyre said. “The board’s very cautious, as they should be, about the use of public, tax-collected funds as subsidized business operations in our non-aviation facilities.”
Part of the TTAD’s nonaeronautical budget, however, goes toward benefiting the community, including assistance to nonprofit tenants and the allocation of $2 million for fire mitigation projects. The California Special Districts Association provides guidance to the airport district on any public funds it gifts.
Previously, TDRPD received such community benefit with a license agreement originally priced at $1 a year for the Truckee Bike Park. The fair market value hunt has changed its terms. After the FAA land inspection, the general manager for the recreation district, Sven Leff, said the airport informed them the rent for its bike park would have to change.
In April 2026, the district will begin paying $5,796 per year for the park. It also leases the land for the Ponderosa Golf Course from the airport for a nominal fee, since that acts as an open-space safety zone for the airport.
Leff said the agreement for the golf course included a clause acknowledging that as a nonprofit with community benefit, the parks district was eligible for rental credit payments that covered the full market cost of what was valued at $166,000 per year in 2008.
“What’s a fair rate for a nonprofit?” Horvath wondered. “Or what’s a fair rate for maybe a for-profit organization, but one who has a lot of impact in the community?”
This was just the question the TTAD board has asked when leasing to nonprofits, as well as when the Airport Office Building rented by the Lift was reassessed. Several nonprofits housed in TTAD’s warehouse such as Truckee Roundhouse, Tahoe Food Hub, and Sierra Community House, are the subject of in-kind discounts. According to Etnyre, those nonprofits pay discounted rent, equivalent of about a 50% decrease from fair market value.
“From a business perspective, maybe we’re not being as smart as we could be in terms of revenue opportunities,” Diamond said. “But we are offsetting that loss of revenue in terms of benefit to the region.”
The in-kind discounts are considered community benefit programs that result in foregone revenue. TTAD Director of Finance and Administration Liza Smith estimated the foregone revenue from its warehouse nonprofits for 2026 to equate to around $102,000 as their leases are reassessed for fair market value.
“We’ve got $9M of property tax coming in and I want to make sure that it is used on behalf of the people who are paying it,” Diamond said. “Because that, to me, is general good governance.”
Diamond added, as a pilot himself, he doesn’t think public funds should subsidize his hobby. On the aviation side of things, Etnyre said the TTAD is working on adjusting aeronautical rents and fees to fair market value, as well as introducing landing fees, enforcing hangar rent, and exploring a partnership with JSX, a private jet charter service. JSX was the other primary party interested in the Airport Office Building, but it ultimately didn’t submit a proposal.
Additionally, for-profit organizations like the Lift face higher costs, even though the Lift offers community benefit by serving nonprofits at discounted rates. The assessment commissioned by the airport for the facility valued rent at $2.25 per square foot for a total of $24,300 per year. The Lift is currently paying $1.67 until July 31, 2026, and counter-proposed $1.85 per square foot for its new lease.
In the TTAD Board of Directors’ Jan. 28 meeting, when it disclosed it would lease to the Lift, its staff report acknowledged any capital improvements for the Lift would require taxpayer money to complete, leaving some uncertainty about the Lift’s future.
“As a California Special District, TTAD’s use of property tax funds must meet the public purpose of the district,” the staff report stated. “Because TRV [Truckee River Ventures is the parent company of the Lift] is a for-profit enterprise, funding tenant-specific improvements could be perceived as subsidizing a private business.”
The airport district continues to have to strike a balance between the communities it serves and the regulations it abides by. Due to its allocation of funds to wildfire mitigation, it has shifted its community benefit funding toward a focus on community-wide benefit. However, Etnyre said it will continue to provide in-kind discounts to nonprofits.
While the TTAD works to manage its rentals, entities such as the Town of Truckee have expressed interest in some airport parcels of land, which the district may be willing to part with. If it disposes of the land, the FAA will be involved in how that money is used.
“I think that brings up good questions for the community at large,” Horvath said. “What kind of role do we want the airport to have? … These organizations […] have huge impacts in our community but are sort of beholden to the airport district as their landlord.”
