Bid to Tighten Airport Noise Curbs Rejected

A state administrative law judge has rejected an attempt by Los Angeles to impose stricter noise controls on Burbank Airport, ruling that Los Angeles helped create its own jet noise problems by allowing people to live too close to the facility.

In a sternly worded opinion--made public Monday at the regular meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority--Judge Richard J. Lopez deplored the absence of “rational planning and zoning” in the neighborhoods near the airport that are “under the control (or lack thereof) of the city of Los Angeles.”

The rebuke was delivered in a decision recommending that the state Department of Transportation renew the airport’s crucial permit to continue operating without fully meeting the standards of state noise control laws. Caltrans has accepted the decision and renewed the airport’s permit--called a variance--for three years, effective today.

It was the third major victory for Burbank Airport over anti-noise protesters in three months. It follows an important court ruling in the airport’s favor and success in a federally sponsored noise control study.

The series of victories appear to clear the way for the airport to proceed with plans for construction of a new terminal during the 1990s that could handle more than 7 million passengers annually by the year 2000, more than double the traffic now.

Noise protesters, based in the San Fernando Valley, have enlisted city, state and federal elected officials from the region in a running battle with the airport in recent years aimed at restricting its operations.

Because administrators say they cannot meet the strict noise limits mandated by a 1972 state law, virtually all major airports in the state remain open only under variances. Caltrans is authorized to issue a variance if an airport makes a good-faith effort to control noise and if the airport’s benefits outweigh the noise emanating from it.

In a February hearing on the Burbank variance, Los Angeles requested that the judge require the airport to study the feasibility of “sound barrier” walls to muffle takeoff noise and a “purchase assurance plan” that would guard airport-area home-sellers from losing money because of aircraft noise.

Lopez called the city’s requests unreasonable because Los Angeles had “failed to take appropriate action (including rational planning and zoning) within its jurisdiction to achieve ‘compatible’ land uses,” such as restricting noisy areas to industrial or commercial use.