Torrance, Irked by Pilots’ Suit, Says It May Close Airport : Aviation: Pilots who use Torrance Municipal Airport are trying to prevent homes being built near it. And their attempt has riled the City Council.

Infuriated by a pilots’ lawsuit to block development of homes near the Torrance Municipal Airport, Torrance City Council members Tuesday stopped talking about a $1.5-million general aviation center and threatened to shut down the airfield.

“I have never in the past supported closing the airport,” said Mayor Katy Geissert as the council began 30 minutes of unprecedented discussion on the issue. “I’m now being forced to rethink that position.”

Councilman Bill Applegate said: “If we are going to have restrictions and prohibitions placed on us because of activities at the airport, then maybe we should be asking ourselves whether or not we do want, in fact, to have Torrance airport.”

Local airport and pilot representatives, who were not at the meeting, said Wednesday that the council is overreacting to the lawsuit, which they say is not meant to halt development permanently. Several insisted that the city could not easily close the airport, which is part of state and federal transportation systems.

The council’s attack on the airport strayed drastically from the agenda item they had been asked to consider: the hiring of a new architect to finish designs for the proposed aviation center, a complex of meeting rooms, flight plan areas and administrative offices.

The previous architect, H. Wendell Mounce & Associates, had to redesign the center earlier this year after the firm submitted an initial concept that would have cost $1.7 million to build, roughly $400,000 more than the city had authorized.

Mounce’s Glendale firm also was fired two years ago after its plans for the city’s cultural arts complex fetched construction bids well over budget. But the council hardly made mention of Mounce’s failures before voting 6-1 not only to dump the firm but to reject a staff recommendation to hire BOA Architecture of San Pedro to keep the project moving.

Councilman Mark Wirth, who voted against the majority, said the council “would be giving in to some nonsense” to pursue closure of the airport.

“I certainly would hope we wouldn’t lower ourselves to the same level as this radical group of pilots,” Wirth said. “The council has said before, (closure) is not what we’re going to do. We want an airport that’s going to fit in the community, and we see value in it.”

But the other council members were not mollified.

“I would not be willing to spend any more money on airport improvement until this suit is resolved,” Geissert said, adding that the lawsuit has “written the book for closure of the airport.”

The suit, filed last week by the California Aviation Council and the Torrance Airport Assn., asks that a judge block the city from issuing building permits for 52 homes and an office building at the former Meadow Park Elementary School site less than a mile from the airport until the city conforms with state airport-land-use laws.

Attorney Scott Raphael, who represents the aviation council, charges that the city neglected to analyze whether the Meadow Park project, at Lomita Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, should be built under the airport’s main take-off pattern, where air crashes are most likely to take place. City officials say they are not familiar with the law but have said they don’t believe it applies to them.

Council members said the suit’s allegations about the dangers of development within a mile of the airport indicate to them that the facility may have to be closed.

Councilman Bill Applegate, who said pilots are “pointing the bad finger at the city of Torrance,” said he felt as if he had been “stabbed in the back.”

Applegate acknowledged that he has in the past joked about turning the airfield into a golf course, but Tuesday night he said the city should seriously consider such a move.

“It would be open space, which we need,” he said. “It would be low-density usage . . . and it’s a revenue generator. You could even put some residential around it. That would be attractive.”

Stunned pilots said Wednesday they have long suspected the council did not want the airport to remain in operation.

“They’ve gone way overboard,” said Ted Stinis, president of the Torrance Area Pilots Assn. “They’re attempting to use (the lawsuit) as leverage to impart what they really want to do with the airport. . . . They really weren’t giving us the truth when they have told us over the years that they want to keep the airport.”

Raphael said the council could easily resolve the matter by conducting a study and staging a public hearing on whether the Meadow Park development complies with state airport-land-use guidelines.

“They’ve just decided that they’re going to fix our wagons by making matters worse,” he said. “If they want a war, this is the best way to start one.”

Barry Jay, president of the Torrance Airport Boosters Assn., said he does not believe former City Atty. Stanley Remelmeyer was correct in his written opinion released last year that the city has outright control over the airport.

“This airport is a designated reliever for LAX. It’s part of the state aeronautics system and part of the national transportation system,” Jay said. “If the city chooses to pursue a course of closing the airport, they will find a lot of interest to the contrary.”