Valley Council Members Get Support on Air Terminal Site

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to support the building of a new passenger terminal at Burbank Airport near Clybourn Avenue. Council members said the terminal would help distribute jet noise more equitably to surrounding communities.

The action was requested by Councilmen Ernani Bernardi, Howard Finn and Joel Wachs, whose East San Fernando Valley districts are heavily affected by noise from the airport.

Fewer Flights Over Valley

The motion adopted by the council said the terminal’s construction at the airport’s northwest corner, which is at the west end of the east-west runway, would encourage pilots to take off to the east, reducing noise in the Valley by sending more flights over Burbank and Glendale.

Victor Gill, the airport’s manager of community relations, said it would be premature for the airport to respond to Los Angeles’ action until completion of a study of several possible terminal sites.

The airport was forced on Jan. 8 to rethink is choice of a site for the terminal. Its first choice, near Hollywood Way and San Fernando Road, drew objections from the federal government because it would put passengers too close to Lockheed Corp.’s secret “Skunk Works,” which conducts military research.

Several Drawbacks

Gill said the northwest site is one of many being considered, but said it has many disadvantages.

First, the airport spokesman said, the site contains homes, whose acquisition could prove difficult given a state prohibition on the airport’s use of condemnation to acquire land. Second, construction of the terminal on the site would uproot several general aviation facilities that would have no other place to go. And, third, freeway access to the site is poor.

Despite this, the council instructed the city’s planning and transportation departments Friday to immediately study the environmental, transportation and land-use effects of building the terminal at the northwest site.