Paso Robles planning commission hears update on proposed spaceport and related tech corridor

Paul Sloan, the city’s economic loan manager, gave the Planning Commission an update Tuesday on the City of Paso Robles’ ongoing effort to pursue a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) commercial spaceport license for Paso Robles Municipal Airport and to develop an adjacent ‘‘tech corridor’’ for related businesses.

Sloan said the city’s work flows from a new five‑year economic development strategic plan and that one action item is to pursue a spaceport license. He told commissioners the FAA has different license types and that Paso Robles would pursue a horizontal‑launch/recovery license that would allow spaceplanes to use existing runways: “It would be a license to expand the use of our existing infrastructure, basically the runways we currently have.”

The commission was told the licensing work has proceeded in parallel with planning for the tech corridor. Sloan said the FAA paused the city’s overlay work and requested an updated airport master plan first. He said updating the master plan will likely take 15–18 months and “costs a little over $500,000,” and that Congressman Pineda secured a grant…