Board Again to Take Up Wayne Airport Expansion

When the first few airline jets began climbing out of Orange County Airport each day for San Francisco in the mid-1960s, it was clear that Orange County was becoming a metropolitan center that needed a first-rate airport.

So a new 5,700-foot runway was installed, with an auxiliary runway and taxiways beside it, and the county built a 22,500-square-foot terminal designed to handle up to 400,000 passengers per year--eight times the number then passing through the loading gates.

That was 1967. Now there are 2.8 million passengers annually flowing through a terminal that the county’s upwardly mobile travelers dismiss as outdated, even tacky. Pacific Southwest Airlines and American Airlines do business out of a pair of trailers outside the terminal. And an average of 41 jets leave the runway each day, far short of the number needed to serve a passenger demand estimated at nearly 7 million per year.

New Plan Proposed

On Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors once again will consider a master plan for what is now John Wayne Airport, this time trying to meet the county’s air travel needs into the next century. Under the $190.6-million plan, the entire airport would undergo a dramatic realignment. The plan provides for:

- An immediate increase in flights to 55 daily, or as many as 62 if quieter jets are phased in. Flights eventually could increase to 73 daily, once physical improvements are complete.

- A new 390,000-square-foot terminal that would be located north of the existing building and designed to serve up to 10.24 million passengers per year. The half-mile-long terminal would include 14 airline gates, an integrated parking structure for up to 10,000 cars and a heliport on the roof. Commuter airline facilities would be connected to the terminal through an enclosed concourse.

- Relocating private aircraft currently parked at the north end of the airport to the area where the existing terminal now stands and also to the west side of the airport. The Mission Beechcraft company would be relocated, and a 2,000-square-foot general aviation terminal would be built on the east side of the airport.

- Lengthening the general aviation runway and strengthening the main jet runway to accommodate such jets as the Boeing 767.

- Improvements worth an estimated $32 million to streets and highways surrounding the airport, and new freeway access ramps to the airport from the Corona del Mar, Costa Mesa and San Diego freeways. Even with expansion to just 55 flights, five major intersections near the airport will be well beyond their capacity. In planners’ terms, they would move beyond a level of “very long traffic delays” to a point known as “failure--intersection blocked by external causes.” The traffic picture worsens with 73 flights.

The conflicts leading to development of the current master plan are by no means unique. The airport, like many others in metropolitan areas throughout the nation, has become hopelessly out of step with the growth that has occurred around it. Yet it is locked in by the very urbanization that has brought the county’s needs for modern air transportation into sharp focus.

Thus the debate over whether to expand John Wayne goes far beyond the realm of how to configure a terminal and how to build runways to meet the needs of the 22 million potential passengers forecast for the year 2005. Simply put, there is no way to meet that demand at John Wayne without bringing devastation to the communities that have grown up along its borders.

The questions faced by the Board of Supervisors this week as they contemplate a new airport master plan are essentially political problems: because large enough is too large, the number of aircraft needed too many, the ultimate solution will consist of a delicate balance between the dozens of interests --airlines, airport neighbors, businesses and travelers--who have a stake in the future of John Wayne Airport.

The plan, not surprisingly, is one of the most controversial ever to face county government. While the county’s Industrial League and other business groups support the proposed expansion, a number of influential corporate executives--representing such firms as C. J. Segerstrom and Sons, Beckman Instruments and Pacific Mutual Life--have begun lobbying for a lid of 55 daily flights at John Wayne and a renewed search for a new airport site. The Irvine Co. has expressed fears over probable bottlenecks on streets near the airport. More than 180 families in nearby Santa Ana Heights could lose their homes to the expansion.

Increased Pressure

And Newport Beach, which successfully fought the county in court over an earlier, less ambitious expansion plan, has been mounting increasing political pressure to hold the line on expansion. Yet even the city now supports an increase to 55 daily flights, so long as a new airport site is found.

“If the city thought it could hold the line on the airport or it could shut it down, they would do it in a minute,” said Ken Delino, executive assistant to the city manager, who has specialized in airport matters for Newport Beach.

“But the board knows they can wear the city down,” he said. “They know eventually they can make that airport as big as they want, and it’s only a matter of time. We’ve gone through an education process in Newport Beach.”

From interviews with county supervisors over the past few days, it is clear there is little or no dissent over the actual plan to increase flights to at least 55 by as early as March 1, build a new terminal and complete related road and facilities improvements.

The battle now centers on these issues:

- Whether to allow “trade-outs,” or added-incentive flights, above the basic 55 departures for airlines that use new-technology jets much quieter than the MD-80 fleet now in service. The airport commission has recommended a formula that could allow up to 62 daily flights if 30 of them were the new Boeing 737-300 or British Aerospace BAe-146 jets. Not surprisingly, McDonnell Douglas, manufacturer of the MD-80, has lobbied heavily against the trade-outs.

- The ultimate number of flights serving the airport. While at least four board members appear to favor expansion to 73 daily flights once the new terminal is completed in 1991, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the airport and communities beneath the departure path, wants to hold the line at 55.

- Whether to launch yet another search for a new airport site. Previous site searches, which have focused on such locations as the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Camp Pendleton, Santiago Canyon and even an offshore location, have been rejected repeatedly by the board because of political troubles, physical constraints or--in the case of the two military bases--strong opposition from the Pentagon. It now appears that a majority of the board will favor opening yet another search, at least on a limited scale, while proceeding with expansion to 73 flights in the event the search proves fruitless.

- Compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods. Because the county must at least try to comply with state noise standards for airports, it must eliminate as many homes as possible from the jet noise impact area around the airport, which now includes several blocks of Santa Ana Heights and which surely will expand with added flights unless aircraft become quieter.

An initial plan would have razed more than 1,000 homes and replaced them with business parks, considered more compatible with overflying jets. The county planning staff recommended a less expansive redevelopment plan, incorporating only 294 homes in the interior of Santa Ana Heights, and the planning commission softened it even further, cutting back the redevelopment area to about 180 homes.

The commission’s move satisfied a number of community groups that had sought to minimize changes to Santa Ana Heights, but it angered dozens of others that are eager to sell homes at a profit to commercial developers. Most board members say they will follow Riley’s lead, since the area lies within his district. But while Riley is leaning toward the commission’s recommendation, he has not yet decided.

Almost as important as the basic expansion issues are the legal questions that accompany them.

Newport Beach won its case against the previous airport master plan in 1982 when a judge ruled that the county had failed to adequately study alternatives to the expansion in its environmental impact report. The current, four-volume EIR looks at alternatives, but Newport Beach officials say the county has failed to consider the potential impact of a 390,000-square-foot terminal if it were to be crammed with passengers as tightly as the existing terminal is. In short, they say there are no guarantees that Orange County won’t overuse the new facilities much as they have the existing ones, going far beyond 73 flights and 10.2 million passengers a year.

“They have to look at what they can squeeze into that terminal. That’s our bottom line. That’s our strongest case,” said Delino.

The airlines also have lawyers scrutinizing the expansion plan, particularly its provisions for allowing new airlines into John Wayne.

Despite a strong push from the Federal Aviation Administration to open the airport to more carriers, the county has held the number of airlines to six. The expansion plan contemplates allowing two additional carriers into the airport, with a complex formula for distributing flights that could be influenced strongly by trade-outs for quieter jets.

Yet while most county officials appear inclined to simply admit the two airlines at the top of a waiting list--America West and Continental--other carriers further down on the list are pushing for auctioning or lottery distribution of the available daily departures. Jet America, third on the waiting list, advocates opening the airport to three new carriers.

Explained one supervisor’s aide: “We know we’re going to get sued by at least three--well, maybe more, if you count Newport Beach. . . . What we have to do is keep the litigation level down as far as we can.”

Newport Beach, on the other hand, has accused the county of spending too much time protecting itself from legal challenges and too little time trying to compromise. A proposed binding agreement that would have ended the city’s lawsuits against the airport in exchange for a limit on the noisiest jets was approved by the City Council but rejected by the supervisors, city officials point out.

County officials, working constantly under the eye of their special airport counsel, Michael Gatzke, have been unwilling to sit down and negotiate a compromise, Delino asserted. “Gatzke is a contentious, litigious lawyer, plain and simple. He doesn’t like Newport Beach. He doesn’t like to lose to Newport Beach,” Delino said.

And behind the personalities and public squabbles are fundamental legal issues that are not clearly answered: How far can the county go in regulating jet noise? For instance, can it limit the weight or destinations of planes to ensure that their takeoffs are quieter? Can it require planes to cut their power back at 500 feet to help hold down noise? Can it impose noise limits on private airplanes? How can such limits be enforced?

Also emerging as part of the airport master plan debate are issues over which the county has no sure jurisdiction.

Newport Beach Plan

For instance, Newport Beach has advocated a plan to require a number of takeoffs during the morning hours to go northward, over Tustin and Orange, rather than the normal southward pattern, thereby splitting the noise burden. Tustin and Orange, predictably, oppose the plan, and county officials say they are not sure the FAA will allow them to make the change in any case.

Tustin is also proposing to study changes in the descent pattern for jets, which would require federal concurrence. And the city is raising new questions about plans to offer additional flights to the new, quieter jets, since these jets, while quieter on takeoff, are in many cases noisier on landing approaches than the MD-80.

An unknown quantity in the plan --and a major one--is its financial implications. While county officials propose to pay for the airport expansion through a combination of federal grants, airport revenues, local tax funds and long-term bonding (to be paid back by airport rates, fees and rental charges), their own analysis shows that they will fall $92 million short of paying for total improvements over a 20-year period.

For Newport Beach officials, that raises a concern that the county will increase flights past 73 daily to generate enough money to pay for the plan. Privately, county officials say they may have trouble securing money to pay for the new terminal and other improvements if they do not make an immediate commitment to 73 flights, even before the second site search is completed.

And none of those scenarios include the $32 million in road improvements needed outside the airport itself. Still, county officials say they are confident they will be able to resolve those issues once detailed financial studies are undertaken.

COUNTY AIRPORT EXPANSION PLAN

Cost

$190.6 million

Financing

Existing income from airlines and passengers and about $90 million presumably to come from revenue bond sales. Undetermined financing of new freeway ramps, road improvements in neighborhoods around airport and purchases of some homes in areas where noise would exceed limits.

Construction

A new 390,000-square-foot terminal to replace the existing 29,000-square-foot terminal. Some existing structures would be moved to the west side of field. A new, 2,000-square-foot general aviation terminal. Runway strengthening and lengthening, plus new street access and freeway ramps directly into and out of terminal building. Street improvements to handle additional traffic in surrounding neighborhoods.

Passengers

4.10 million departing and arriving passengers per year once flights increased to 55 per day, compared with 2.8 million currently. 10.24 million passengers per year by 2005 once new termina1814063475Flights

Would increase from 41 daily departures currently to 55 on March 1, if airlines have the aircraft and flight schedules and if operating agreements with county are signed. Possibility of additional flights if airlines use newer, quieter jets. Flights would increase to 73 per day or more when new terminal is completed in 1991 after updated environmental review.