CAPE CORAL, Fla. — What will Cape Coral look like in 5, 10, 20 years? That's a question many homeowners have, especially those who live in Northwest Cape Coral, an area with a large amount of undeveloped land.
"When I moved here, the realtor told me I was moving to the boondocks. I was happy with that,” said Terry Courtemanche, a Northwest Cape Coral homeowner.
Watch Bella Line's full report below:
Courtemanche and Laura Dobson live near Burnt Store Road and Kismet Parkway. They called Fox 4’s Cape Coral Community Correspondent Bella Line after they found out about an airport proposed by a consulting firm that could bring jets right over their homes.
"I was horrified. Actually, the implications of having that so close are huge,” said Dobson.
Line reached out to Bruce Hoch, the lead consultant, and he says it would be a positive economic driver.
“There's about 58,000 people a day leave the city to go work elsewhere. They need to capture some of that. Keep it in place,” said Hoch. "Generally, when there are executive airports, they bring in an untapped economic activity for the city, which is a higher revenue source, a higher value of tourism.”
When Line went to check out the proposed site, Ray Mule, a nearby neighbor stopped to give his opinion.
"It's gonna hurt everybody's home values. It's gonna hurt future home sales. It just makes zero sense,” said Mule.
Mule, Courtemanche, and Dobson all told Line they believe there could be environmental impacts, too.
"We have a lot of pollution just from the road. Now add planes to that, and we will have a black petroleum layer on everything over here, including the canals. This is wrong. We shouldn't be polluting,” said Courtemanche.
The developer says he wants to add a solar farm next to the airport.
Although these are just suggestions, these neighbors all said they have started contacting other neighbors and even some of our council members.
"Realizing that this is just an idea, we want to kill this idea before we even get started,” said Mule.
DCG Corplan Consulting had a presentation of other ideas for the city’s future that you can find here.
