Settlement would pay neighbors of Fort Lauderdale airport runway. Decades of fighting over airport expansion could end

By Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel

3:04 p.m. EDT, September 5, 2011

A historic settlement is brewing that would put to rest 18 years of fighting over airport expansion, closing once and for all the case of Dania Beach v. Broward County.

The deal hinges on a never-before used payoff of homeowners, offering them checks for 20 percent of their home's value, in return for accepting that they live near an airport and will suffer jet noise forever, especially after the county builds a new $790 million runway next to them.

"It has not been done before, to the best of my knowledge, in the United States,'' Broward Airport Director Kent George said.

The new runway, a second "main'' landing strip for Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, is expected to reduce air travel delays and bolster the economy.

Dania has been suing Broward County to stop its airport from expanding since 1993. Homeowners say they never imagined the little airport they lived next to would morph into an aviation giant whose jets would drown out their backyard conversations.

If this settlement passes, all litigation would end.

Swallowing this deal, and laying down the sword, could prove difficult for Dania, its leaders acknowledge. Fighting the airport became a sport in Dania over the years; activists built identities around it, and as the settlement gets its initial vetting, controversy surrounds it.

So too, though, does resignation.

"That runway's never going to be stopped,'' former Dania Commissioner Bob Anton said with anger in his voice, before voting at an Airport Advisory Board meeting Aug. 25 to support the settlement.

Longtime runway fighters Anton and Anne Castro, a Dania Beach city commissioner who helped mold the settlement in court-ordered mediation with Broward, said this is as good as it's going to get.

"This isn't my best outcome. I really feel like I failed,'' Castro told other Dania residents last week in an Airport Advisory Board meeting. "But I also feel I got everything they're going to give me.''

Homeowners who take the money would be accepting the noise, and also "vibrations, aircraft lights, fumes, dust or other particulate matter, fuel particles, fear, interference with sleep, enjoyment and communication and any and all other effects'' of the aircraft flying over, the release statement they would have to sign says. The release would stay with the property, even if it were sold.

The settlement has to clear the Dania City Commission unanimously at two hearings in September, then get a majority vote from the Broward County Commission in October. After that, it would be sent to the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve it as well. The FAA would pay 80 percent. Airport revenues that passengers paid on their tickets would fund the rest, George said.

"I think it's a fair way to attack this problem,'' George said.

About 857 homeowners south or west of the airport would have the option of taking the check, or selling their home and getting a payment from the county for 25 percent of the home's market value, if the sales price is lower.

In other words, the owner of a home worth $200,000 could opt for a $40,000 check and remain in the home. Or if the owner opted to sell and only got $150,000 for the house, the county would pay the $50,000 difference. Only 22 homes would be on the market at a time, so homeowners could wait years for that option.

The homes would be among 1,706 that are eligible for about $80,000 in soundproofing, as well.

In addition, the county would give Dania $100,000, plus two vacant pieces of land near the airport worth $6.3 million. Some other pieces of land that the county has been holding would be auctioned and returned to Dania's tax rolls, while home lots the county took ownership of over the years would be given to Dania without the usual requirement that they be used for affordable housing. The county also would agree to stop airplanes from flying on the new runway between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

"That is a huge, huge positive for all the people that live in the vicinity of the airport,'' George said.

The total package would run $175 million to $200 million — the majority of which would go for soundproofing, most of the remainder being $50 million for one-time payments or $56 million for the sales-assistance alternative.

At the city's Airport Advisory Board meeting on Aug. 25, one resident said the vote would be the most important in their lives. The proposal passed on an eight-six vote, recommending Dania approve it. Anton voted yes. So did Jay Field, another longtime fighter.

They were angry about it. They didn't like it. They said it would help some homeowners but leave some next-door neighbors without compensation, because they're outside the high-noise zone, technically.

Board member Randall Wright said the deal's not good enough.

"As a guy who lives out there underneath that thing, I think we got sold out,'' he told Castro.

Dania's outside attorney, Neil McAliley, told the group that he had tried his best to stop the runway, "hoping we would be the David and slay the Goliath.'' The settlement won't get any better, he said, telling them there is "no more blood to be taken from this stone.''

Dania lost its biggest court challenge last year. And the airport is moving ahead. Last Tuesday, county commissioners hired a $10 million project manager for the runway, and agreed to negotiate with a firm to do $176 million worth of work designing and building the stuctures that will carry the new runway over U.S. 1 and the Florida East Coast Railway tracks.

"I think everybody feels we need to constructively move forward,'' George said.

"It is time,'' Castro said.

George said ground will break on the runway in January. The opening date is this time of year, in 2014.

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