SANTA MONICA, Calif. —
Residential neighborhoods encircle the municipal airport here on three
sides. And while it has no airline service, about 260 aircraft operate
every day from Santa Monica Municipal Airport’s 5,000-foot runway on a
plateau above the surrounding terrain.
From above, the airfield
looks “like an aircraft carrier in a sea of homes,” says Alan Levenson,
who lives near the airport and sometimes watches the activity from the
roof of his garage.
Aircraft as small as single-engine planes and
helicopters and as large as twin-engine business jets fly in and out of
the 227-acre airport. As its traffic has increased, it has brought to a
boil a simmering battle over whether the airport has outgrown its
surroundings.
Next week, voters in this Los Angeles suburb of
92,000 will go to the polls to determine who should control the
airport’s future: elected leaders or residents. Debate over the airport
extends far beyond city limits, involving the federal government and
national aviation lobbying groups.
“The issue is, This used to be
a small airport that didn’t have jets, and people managed to get
along,” said John Fairweather, another airport neighbor and the leader
of one of several groups that want either a reduction in jet traffic or
closure of the airport.
The initial dispute started in the 1960s,
when neighbors objected to the noise of the Learjet, one of the first
private American business jets and the product of the Santa Monica-based
Lear Inc. In 1967 the city restricted jet flights into the airport
until a federal court overturned the ban in 1981. Since then, the City
Council has imposed flight curfews, landing fees and noise abatement
measures.
Jet traffic continued to grow, however, peaking in 2007
when there were 18,500 jet flights at the airport. The growth was
propelled by companies selling fractional jet shares and by-the-hour jet
travel cards. Jets were 13 to 14 percent of all flights until the
economic crisis of 2008. While the total number of jet operations has
not recovered, jets are now a larger percentage of the total traffic.
According to a report prepared by the Santa Monica airport’s Noise
Management Office, jets made up 15 percent of traffic in 2013.
These
numbers infuriate neighbors like Mr. Levenson, who says the airport
primarily serves outsiders and private, wealthy fliers “while continuing
to threaten the health and safety of the neighbors it no longer employs
or benefits.”
A complicated trail of lawsuits and real estate
transfer agreements runs parallel to the history of the Santa Monica
Airport, which was acquired by the city in 1926. Douglas Aircraft used
it through World War II and built many of the nearby homes for its
workers. But for all the documents generated in the dispute, none has
definitively resolved the question that voters will decide on Nov. 4:
Who should have the power to make decisions about its future — its
residents or the council they elected?
In the face of the complaints, the city has been examining the economic and environmental impact of the airport.
“You’ve got a greater
and greater density” in population, said Martin Pastucha, Santa
Monica’s director of public works. “The use of the airport at its
inception is a different environment than what it is currently, and you
have to ask, ‘Are those two compatible anymore? Is the airport really
compatible with current land use that exists around here?' ”
The
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, an airport advocacy group, is
one of two lobbying groups based in the Washington area that is helping
to finance a referendum requiring city leaders to maintain the status
quo at the airport and get voter approval for any changes. Only this
would protect the airport from what the association’s vice president of
airports, Bill Dunn, claims is the council’s effort to seize the land
for future development to the detriment of aviation.
“Would you
consider closing the entrance or exit ramp from your city to the
highway? A general aviation airport is an access point to the national
aviation system,” he said. “It’s an entry point to take you anyplace in
the world.”
Supporters of the airport point to Santa Monica’s long history of aviation.
“The
airport has been there 70, 80-plus years,” said Todd Baumgartner, a
senior partner at the aviation consulting firm FBO Partners and a former
executive for NetJets, a fractional jet ownership company. “They didn’t
know that when they bought their house? That in itself is frustrating.”
The
city’s immediate concern is the vote, to establish how a majority of
the voters feel about the council members’ ability to resolve this
lengthy dispute. “What the council is slowly seeking is a determination”
of whether it has the right to control the airport’s role in the city’s
future, Mr. Pastucha said.
The airport’s space so restricted, it is exempt from runway protection requirements, a fact not lost on the airport’s foes.
Government
statistics show there have been 10 accidents related to aircraft
operating from Santa Monica Municipal Airport over the last 10 years,
four of them fatal. In 2011, a student pilot crashed a small plane into
the side of an unoccupied house a quarter-mile from the runway. A year
later, another private plane crashed short of the runway, killing the
pilot. Neighbors grew more concerned last fall when a Cessna Citation
business jet slammed into a hangar shortly after landing, killing all
four people on board.
“So far no one has ever been killed on the ground,” Mr. Levenson said, “but accidents do happen.”
Safety
and health issues related to aviation fuel emissions and noise are some
of the complaints the City Council must consider as it weighs options
like reducing traffic or closing the airport, Mr. Pastucha said.
Regardless
of what Santa Monica residents decide next week, there is still the
matter of the Federal Aviation Administration, which contends that the
city is obligated to operate the airport for the use and benefit of the
public, according to Ian Gregor, public affairs manager for the agency. A
city lawsuit challenging the F.A.A. was dismissed as not timely, and
city officials say they have not given up.
“We’re really a
balancing act between trying to deal with these interests,” Mr. Pastucha
said, “and trying to navigate the conflict that exists between the
two.”
Story and Photos: http://www.nytimes.com
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