Airport Noise Study Suggests Buying Houses

Burbank Airport should resolve aircraft noise problems by buying 54 homes outright and obtaining noise rights from thousands of other homeowners by paying either cash or soundproofing expenses for their houses, an airport consultant recommended Thursday.

The recommendations were submitted as part of a federally funded study of aircraft noise and will be the subject of public meetings next week.

Leaders of homeowner groups immediately condemned the proposals as inadequate and unfair, with one anti-noise activist saying he would “fight tooth and nail” against provisions requiring some owners to pay half the cost of soundproofing their homes. Soundproofing costs from $10,000 to $20,000 per home.

The recommendations are contained in a report by Peat Marwick, a consulting firm, following a three-year study sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration under its Part 150 noise program. The study was conducted by committees made up of representatives of the public, government bodies and officeholders.

Summary Released

The 60-page report is to be issued next week, but a five page summary was released Thursday. The report and public comment on it will be submitted to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. The authority’s decisions will be passed to the FAA, which provides most of the money to carry out recommendations and has final authority over them.

In return for financial help from the airport, homeowners would renounce the right to protest aircraft noise. The proposal calls for owners of 2,300 home sites to give or sell to the airport “avigation easements”--the right to fly aircraft over the property and cause noise on it.

The easements would be based on 92,000 takeoffs and landings annually, the predicted traffic level of the airport in the year 2000, said airport spokesman Victor Gill. That is a 70% increase from the current level of 54,000.

In a pending lawsuit by homeowners, the airport claims it has in effect acquired such easements by using the airspace for many years.

The summary suggests the airport buy 54 single-family homes in the Burbank area just south of the airport, between Victory Boulevard and the Valhalla Memorial Park, where the average noise reading is 75 decibels or higher.

The airport authority is specifically prohibited by state law from acquiring property by condemnation, as most local governments can do. If the suggestion were accepted, the airport would have to negotiate with the owners and would discuss with all the residents of the neighborhood the impact of removing the houses, Gill said.

Reimbursement Suggested

The summary suggests that in Burbank and Los Angeles neighborhoods with average readings of 70 decibels or more, where about 800 homes are located, the airport should consider reimbursing those who sell their homes for the difference between the sale price and the amount the home would have sold for if there were no aircraft noise.

There is no indication who would determine that amount.

Another suggestion was the soundproofing of 2,300 homes, with the airport paying all soundproofing expenses for the 800 homes in the 70-plus decibels area, and half the cost for 1,500 homes in areas where the average noise level is between 65 and 70 decibels.

“We will fight tooth and nail against putting any financial burden on any of the homeowners,” said Tom Patterson, a leader of the North Hollywood Residents Assn. and a member of one of the Part 150 study committees.

The entire Part 150 study process is “a stalling tactic the airports use to buy 2 to 5 years of time,” said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino.

The study is unfair to homeowners because it is based on the average decibel readings, which involve only a small area immediately around the airport and not the hundreds of thousands of residents of the San Fernando Valley disturbed by jetliners, he said.

Silver said the only answer to aircraft noise is to move all commercial flights out of Burbank to the now-unused Los Angeles city airport in the Antelope Valley.

Acquisition Program

Los Angeles International Airport, after a Part 150 study that lasted from 1981 to 1985, launched a program to acquire homes in noisier areas and convert the land to non-residential uses, and to soundproof homes in less noisy neighborhoods.

To date, the city of Inglewood has spent $9 million in federal funds acquiring land, and the airport has soundproofed “about 30 homes, in an experimental program, and we have about 25,000 to go,” said Maurice Laham, chief of environmental affairs for LAX.

The summary suggested that the city of Los Angeles should refuse to issue zoning changes or building permits to property owners who refuse to grant air-traffic easements.

However, the Los Angeles city government, under pressure from homeowners groups, has been at loggerheads with the airport authority, pushing the authority to adopt a different approach to noise control.

The city wants the authority to try to persuade airline pilots to take off at least half the time toward the east, over the three cities that own the airport. Currently, virtually all flights take off to the south and circle westward and northward over Los Angeles neighborhoods in the eastern Valley.

The authority has refused to take a stand on runway use, insisting that it is powerless to interfere with flight decisions reserved by federal law for the FAA and pilots.

City Councilman Joel Wachs, one of the most prominent political foes of the airport administration, has introduced a motion to withdraw the six Los Angeles representatives from the Part 150 study’s policy committee to protest the authority’s stand.

The proposals will be open to public discussion at Glenwood Elementary School at 8001 Ledge Ave. in Sun Valley on Wednesday, and at Luther Burbank Junior High School at 3700 Jeffries Ave. in Burbank on Thursday. Both sessions will be from 4 to 9 p.m.