Seekers of Site for New Airport to Take Yet Another Look at Lindbergh

Faced with resistance from public officials in the South Bay to locating a new airport near the border, civic leaders looking to relocate Lindbergh Field say they will examine--for one last time--whether the aging center-city airport can be revived as the region’s air hub.

The move to take another look at Lindbergh was approved on Thursday by a panel of locally elected officials convened by the San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) to help oversee a yearlong, $350,000 study of where to put a new regional airport.

The change, requested by Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox, is a significant departure for the study, which has been predicated on the belief that Lindbergh would be abandoned as San Diego’s primary air field because of limited capacity, as well as safety concerns.

‘Band-Aid’ Fixes

Lindbergh is one of the nation’s smallest airports serving a major city, with only 471 acres and one long runway. It is so overburdened that the San Diego Port District, which owns the facility, has recently embarked on a $27-million “Band-Aid” program to expand the field’s capacity until a replacement is found.

The study has also assumed that a new regional airport would need a minimum of 4,000 acres and two runways to accommodate an estimated 40 million annual passengers by the middle of the next century.

Those constraints have led Sandag and its consultant, KPMB Peat Marwick of San Francisco, to identify three preliminary sites for a new airport--the Miramar Naval Air Station, a tract of land east of Miramar and Otay Mesa.

The South Bay proposal contemplates construction of a joint international airport with Tijuana that would traverse the border and absorb 3,400 to 6,600 acres of prime developable land on Otay Mesa. It has been the favorite of San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts, a major proponent of relocating Lindbergh, which lies on bayfront property within his district.

South Bay Backlash

But talk of a border airport has prompted a backlash from South Bay officials, who complain that they don’t want to be the region’s dumping ground for unpopular public works projects like a secondary sewage-treatment plant and state prisons, which either already exist or are planned for the area.

“Every time there is a regional problem and where they need to dump the problem, it always seems so convenient to find a place in the South Bay,” County Supervisor Brian Bilbray said before Thursday’s Sandag panel meeting of the Policy Committee. A member of the panel, Bilbray argued for the change in the study to include Lindbergh.

“Everything from sewers to hazardous waste to airports and jails . . . there is a feeling that the political path takes the least resistance and it is easier to dump on the working class in the South Bay rather than the wealthy people in the north,” Bilbray said.

Bilbray said he is also concerned about the findings of a Sandag report, released earlier this month, that shows the proposed international airport would gobble up the most land in private ownership of any proposal. The border airport could consume as much as 5,585 acres, contrasted with only 76 acres at Miramar and no private land if the airport is moved farther east.

Bilbray said the city of San Diego has used Otay Mesa as the “sacrificial lamb” in development wars, restricting growth in the northern areas while encouraging developers to seek their fortunes unrestricted near the border. Taking that land away from developers now for an airport will be difficult, he added.

“It’s tough, once you’ve thrown it to the wolves, to get it back,” he said.

Affect of Noise

The Sandag study also shows that more people may be affected by jet noise from a border airport than at the two other alternatives. Projections show that nearly 30,000 people--mostly in University City and La Jolla--could be living under jet noise by the year 2010 if a new airport were to replace the Navy at Miramar.

Meanwhile, there could be as many as 44,200 people in San Ysidro and southern Chula Vista living in the jet noise zone under one scenario in the South Bay, the report shows. A second configuration of runways across the border would affect only 6,470 people, estimates show.

Those kind of worries, said Cox, prompted the Chula Vista City Council to vote last month to request that Sandag change its study to re-examine the question of keeping Lindbergh--a move he agreed Thursday could take the heat off South Bay.

“My concern is the impact it would have on Chula Vista,” Cox said. “We’re talking about a new imposition.”

Before that happens, Cox said, he wants to make sure that Sandag takes a “critical look at Lindbergh to see what has to be done to continue to allow us to keep it as a regional airport.”

Even if it meant buying up 1,000 million-dollar homes, that still may be cheaper than buying the land in Otay Mesa, where more than $1 billion worth of infrastructure has been invested, he said.

Cox’s suggestion was even endorsed by those on the Sandag panel who believe that Lindbergh is a lost cause, including Roberts.

“It is hopeless, but the public generally is not aware of the entire range of problems as we grow, as we increase in air traffic and we try to maintain an airport at Lindbergh Field,” Roberts said. “It’s good that we include it in the study. . . . I’m reasonably certain that the life span of Lindbergh Field is very limited.”

Escondido Councilman Ernie Cowan also agreed that Lindbergh should now be included in the study, which is scheduled for completion in the fall.

“From a public perception standpoint, it’s a snake we have to kill,” Cowan said. “We can finally, empirically say, ‘Here it is folks. This is why it (Lindbergh) won’t work.’ ”