Plan to Curb Jet Noise Draws Mixed Reactions : Van Nuys: Airport businesses warn of closures and a loss of jobs. Neighbors want the new decibel restrictions enacted sooner.

A proposed ordinance that would gradually ban the noisiest private jets from Van Nuys Airport has drawn support from those who live near the airport and opposition from those who work there.

Homeowner group leaders generally praise the measure, although some say it does not go far enough and will be implemented too slowly.

Many who operate businesses at the airport, however, complain that it is unfair to change the rules after they have invested large sums in jet service facilities.

The ordinance “could potentially put us out of business in a fairly short time,” Clay Lacy, who owns a jet repair business at the airport, said at a public hearing Tuesday.

Phil Berg, representing the Van Nuys Airport Assn., predicted “grave social impact through loss of jobs due to this ordinance.”

Berg and other business leaders called for a study of the economic impact of the ordinance before any action is taken.

The ordinance was described as a “perfectly fair and reasonable and sensible approach” to the airport’s noise problem by Gerald A. Silver, representing homeowners groups in Encino and Sherman Oaks.

Silver said the noise regulation could help reverse the long-term trend at the airport in which corporate jets are displacing smaller, piston-engine planes.

Before it could go into effect, the ordinance must be approved by the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, a city agency whose members are appointed by the mayor, and the City Council.

Commissioners ordered the ordinance drafted in response to repeated complaints about excessive noise from the airport, which is the nation’s busiest general aviation facility.

Much of the homeowner criticism has centered on the measure’s slow implementation.

After Jan. 1, the ordinance would bar takeoffs and landings of planes rated by the Federal Aviation Administration as producing 85 decibels or more of noise on takeoff.

Airport officials say that step would affect only a handful of the older planes based at the airport.

Between next January and January, 1998, the maximum noise allowed would gradually be lowered to 77 decibels.

Airport officials estimate that the 77-decibel level would force out about half of the 90 jets now based at Van Nuys.

About 800 propeller-driven planes also are based there.

At present, the airport has only one noise regulation. It bars departures by planes generating more than 74 decibels of noise between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., except for police, fire, military and medical emergency flights.

Under the proposed ordinance, the start of that curfew would be moved up to 10 p.m., but not until January, 1996.

Flyers distributed by Homeowners of Encino, a group that has long criticized Van Nuys Airport as too noisy, calls for a 74-decibel limit for takeoffs at all times.

The group also advocates a weekend ban on practice flights and touch-and-go maneuvers, in which planes land, then take off without coming to a stop.

In addition, they support a ban on all jet takeoffs, regardless of noise level, from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.