Keeping Option for New Airport

The San Diego City Council last week took a step in the right direction toward securing a new airport site when it considered an emergency ordinance for a 12-month moratorium on planning and construction near Brown Field, one of the sites being studied.

The moratorium proposal by Councilman Ron Roberts received five votes but failed because six votes are needed for an emergency ordinance. Just the same, five votes showed a willingness to begin the important work of replacing overburdened Lindbergh Field. The proposal will be back before the council for another vote this week when Mayor Maureen O’Connor is present.

The purpose of the emergency ordinance was to head off a major development scheduled to come before the Planning Commission in December. A regular ordinance would not go into effect until January.

The moratorium would buy time for the San Diego Assn. of Governments to complete its yearlong, federally funded review of potential airport sites.

Upgrading the small Otay Mesa municipal airfield into a regional commercial airport is one of the top options being considered by Sandag. But more than 11,000 homes are in the planning process for land near Brown Field, land that could be needed for the runway and would be in the path of airplane noise. If those homes were built, or the planning proceeded beyond the point of no return, Brown Field would suffer from some of the same limitations as Lindbergh Field, and it probably would be eliminated as an option.

The reconsideration of Brown Field understandably has Otay Mesa property owners upset because it was rejected as an option in two previous studies. But the problems at Lindbergh have grown more urgent. Passenger traffic has increased 63% in the last 10 years, and the airport is expected to reach its capacity in just seven years. Relocating the airport is predicted to take 13 years once a site is decided on. And the list of possible sites is short and full of obstacles.

So the option of Brown Field must be protected a while longer. But Otay Mesa landowners--and all city residents--have a right to expect that this time the matter will be decided.

The study by Sandag should lay the groundwork for that decision. But the council needs to give the planners the time to complete their review and to make sure that the most promising solutions are not prematurely foreclosed.