Van Nuys Airport Efforts to Reduce Noise Defended

A Los Angeles city attorney, defending Van Nuys Airport’s right to operate without fully complying with state noise laws, argued Tuesday that the city has taken action “at least 50 times” to meet neighbors’ complaints and reduce airport noise.

Assistant City Atty. Breton K. Lobner said city officials have taken steps including repeatedly prohibiting scheduled commercial flights, enacting curfews on night takeoffs and persuading the Pentagon not to equip the airport’s Air National Guard unit with jet fighter planes.

Lobner’s defense of airport officials was presented at the opening of a hearing into whether the state Department of Transportation should renew a crucial airport operating permit.

The hearing, conducted in the form of a civil trial by an administrative law judge, was called at the request of anti-noise activists from homeowner groups.

New Restrictions Sought

Don Schultz, one of those who requested the hearing, told the judge that the protesters are not trying to shut down the airport but want new restrictions imposed on it in return for renewal of the permit. Schultz is president of Ban Airport Noise, a coalition of homeowner organizations, and also represents Reseda and Van Nuys homeowner groups.

At stake is a recommendation by the judge to the head of Caltrans on whether to renew the airport’s “variance,” a Caltrans permit that allows the facility to continue operating without meeting state noise-control standards.

Many urban airports in the state, including LAX, Burbank, San Francisco, San Diego, Anaheim and Ontario, operate under variances, because airport administrators say they cannot meet the standards.

25 Variance Requests Granted

The Van Nuys Airport’s variance expires this year, and, without a renewal, the airport would have to close. But, in the 25 such variance trials held since the state law went into effect in 1975, the variance has been granted in all cases, although sometimes with conditions, said Dick Dyer, noise control officer for the Caltrans Division of Aeronautics.

Lobner, asking that the variance be renewed for a year without restrictions, told Judge Richard J. Lopez that “it is not technically or economically feasible” to comply with the latest state noise control regulation, which went into effect last year. Until then, Van Nuys was in compliance with the law.

The airport violates the more restrictive standard over a neighboring area of about 12 acres, he said. City officials estimate that 386 people live in 177 residences in that area, he said.

Conditions of Gift

The airport was given to the city by the federal government in 1949 on the condition that the land be used as a public airport. The deed turning over the land, a former private airport that was seized by the Army Air Corps at the outbreak of World War II, specifies that it “shall be used for public airport purposes . . . for use and benefit of the public at all times.”

If the city had to close the airport--now worth an estimated $50 million--for lack of a variance, “the federal government can take it back,” Lobner commented.