Panel Rejects Full LAX Expansion

Opponents of expanding Los Angeles International Airport won a key victory Thursday when local government officials from six Southern California counties adopted a regional aviation plan that would push future airport growth to outer suburbs in neighboring counties.

A plan that included many of the specifics of the LAX expansion proposal was defeated by a 2-1 margin by the influential Transportation Committee of the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

An alternate plan--allowing for 78 million passengers a year at LAX, or 11 million fewer than city officials would like--passed by an equally lopsided margin.

Those votes were taken as part of the panel’s effort to draft a long-range aviation scenario to guide airport growth in six Southern California counties over the next 25 years. The planning agency can’t build airports or force their construction, but it does exert influence over the way federal and state funds are spent for access roads, public transit, cargo routes and other related services.

As a result, Thursday’s votes portend significant troubles for the LAX expansion effort, a $12-billion construction project supported by Mayor Richard Riordan but bogged down in community and environmental opposition.

The alternate plan faces at least two more votes before the regional planning agency. Should it stand up--and many familiar with the planning agency believe it will--it could create a new tangle of legal problems for LAX.

Anti-airport factions would be able to argue that any LAX plan exceeding 78 million annual passengers would violate the region’s master plan. That could carry weight as part of any court challenge to the airport’s environmental impact plan.

The votes left some planners shaken because the adopted plan is considered to have a much greater environmental downside than the one that was defeated. The staff concluded that the proposed LAX expansion would have less impact on traffic, air quality, noise and environmental justice than the one approved by the committee.

“This was a highly political vote. Everybody came with their marching orders,” said Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels. “The No on LAX group worked us hard.”

A verbal sparring match replete with the class and ethnic overtones of the airport debate broke out in a public hearing. African American residents of Inglewood argued with homeowners from affluent communities in southern Orange County, who are desperately fighting to block an airport at El Toro.

“They believe their quality of life is sanctified. We’re here to tell you, no more, no more,” said Inglewood activist Mike Stevens, referring to Orange County airport foes.

Bill Kogerman, chairman of Orange County’s Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, urged the elected officials not to do anything to spread airport problems south. He likened that shift to transplanting a cancerous organ to someone without cancer.

Notable by their absence were representatives of LAX and the Los Angeles business and labor groups that have been aggressively pushing the airport expansion plan.

Supporters of the LAX expansion plan argue that the airport must be modernized to improve passenger service and continue to create jobs and economic activity for the city and the region. But that argument was lost among the parade of airport foes at the hearing.

Noel Parks, spokesman for a San Pedro Peninsula homeowners group, said the economic stimulus argument was “code for ‘Shut up and get out of the way--your neighborhoods are going to get run over.’ ”

At the heart of the dispute is the massive expansion plan unveiled by LAX officials in January. It would boost passenger traffic from the current 67 million passengers a year to 89 million over the next 15 years. As part of the plan, runways would be lengthened, a new terminal would be constructed, and the airport would be circled by a new parkway, along with other changes.

Supporters see those improvements as essential to the region’s economic health, and they said that Thursday’s vote, though disappointing, will not derail their effort.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, an LAX supporter who was on the losing side of both votes, said the airport--the nation’s third busiest--”will continue to absorb all the transportation needs of the region unless there are alternatives.”

“Where are people going to go?” Bernson asked. “Either you won’t be able to fly or you’ll continue to come to LAX.”

Meg Waters, an El Toro foe, said: “What we have just had was a very bloody battle for a phantom hill.”

But El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon, who helped organize a coalition of 100 Southland cities and neighborhood organizations against the LAX plan, was ecstatic.

“This statement says firmly that the people of Southern California do not want LAX to expand beyond its existing facilities,” Gordon said.

Weighing the votes, Hasan Ikhrata, chief transportation planner for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said the committee’s actions will have “a huge impact.”

“The committee sent a strong message that they want a regional approach to airport growth,” said Ikhrata. “They also said clearly that the communities around LAX can’t take it anymore.”