City council members in Courtenay, B.C. appear to be backpedaling on a proposal for a new bridge that would destroy Courtenay Airpark.

The idea showed up as an option for the city’s 20-year transportation plan and depicted a bridge crossing the threshold of one end of the runway. It would also be in the approach for the seaplane base.

Public backlash has apparently prompted a retreat from the idea by the mayor and at least some council members, according to the Comox Valley Record. The newspaper is reporting that the politicians are now saying that bisecting the airport with a bridge is nothing more than an “arrow on a map.“People are drawing everything onto one arrow on a map,” Mayor Larry Jangula told the newspaper. “There has been much misinformation and assumptions spread in the public. Any comments on land-use decisions, particularly at the Courtenay Airpark, would be speculation.”

Many of the hangar and business owners at the popular airport got wind of the proposal by way of a notice that their long-term leases were being changed to month-to-month leases at the end of 2019. Now city officials are saying that’s merely an effort to harmonize lease expiry dates and “no one is on a month-to-month basis.”