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A committee looking for additional ways to redevelop the former Pease Air Force Base site in Portsmouth has found adding housing to the area will be a tough sell for the FAA, according to the Portsmouth Herald. 

Pease Development Authority board chairman Kevin Smith, who also chairs the new PDA committee, told the paper Jorge Panteli, a compliance and land specialist with FAA, stated in an email “the FAA policy for on-airport residential development is to not allow this incompatible land use on or near airports.”  

Smith characterized the agency’s response as not being a “closed door,” but said it would be difficult to build housing there. 

In addition, much of the base, now the Pease International Tradeport, is contaminated with carcinogens resulting from its decades of military use.