Pilots Drop Lawsuit Against Torrance

A pilots group Friday dropped its suit blocking a Torrance housing development, saying city officials have admitted they did not comply with state land-use laws.

The lawsuit by the California Aviation Council and the Torrance Airport Assn., a small group of pilots created to back the suit, charged that city officials ignored state land-use laws when they gave permission for construction of 52 new homes and an office building under the departure pattern for Torrance Municipal Airport.

Filed last month, the suit marked the opening salvo in a war of words between the City Council, which responded by threatening to close the airport, and pilots, who say the city does not have the right to do so.

Attorney Scott Raphael, who filed the lawsuit, said city assurances that a public hearing would be held to review the airport’s impact on the former Meadow Park School site prompted pilots to drop the suit.

If the City Council concludes, after a thorough review, that homes may safely be built on the site, the pilots’ group plans no further action.

“They have to do a good faith job or we’ll be right back in court,” Raphael said.

City officials said they are convinced that the homes may legally be built.

The lawsuit focuses on a state law requiring special county review of any project planned within a mile of an airport. City officials did not comply with the law because the county has not yet set up procedures for the review.

Assistant City Atty. Bill Quale said the city will review its airport impact information at a January hearing, but he said no new information will be discussed because the city already has adhered to the spirit of the law.

“We have the airport master plan, we have done environmental impact reports” for the airport master plan and for the Meadow Park project, and have put noise limits on airport use, Quale said. “We didn’t categorize it as complying with this particular state law, we didn’t say, ‘Mother, may I,’ so the hearing will accomplish that.”

Despite the suit’s dismissal, City Council members said they remain wary.

“There are some residual feelings that still persist,” Councilman George Nakano said. Closing the airport “may be one of the options we have to look at.”

If the city does act to close the airport, “I would be strongly in favor of making that into a golf course so that we can maintain some open space,” Nakano said.