Judge Supports Burbank Airport Expansion Plan

A Superior Court judge has given Burbank Airport a major victory in its 11-year fight with the city of Los Angeles over plans to build a larger airport terminal, moving the project closer to the construction phase.

In a ruling made public Tuesday, Judge Robert H. O’Brien sided with the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority in the third of four lawsuits brought against the authority by Los Angeles, representing residents opposed to airport noise.

The judge, saying he had no choice, ruled that airport officials had complied with state law in the manner in which they carried out an environmental impact report for the project, a key controversy.

The judge’s decision was released by airport officials, who said they were elated by the court victory and vowed to begin the next stage of planning on the multimillion-dollar project--quadrupling the size of the terminal--as soon as possible.

“Now maybe we can begin talking about areas of agreement with our neighbors rather than disagreement,” said Brian Bowman, president of the authority, the airport’s nine-member governing board. “I’m happy to have it behind us.”

Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles had sued airport officials last year to halt the project on behalf of residents of the southeastern San Fernando Valley, who have long complained about noise created by planes taking off from the airport.

Tuesday, Deputy City Atty. Keith Pritsker said he was unsure whether the city will appeal O’Brien’s decision, a question he will put before the Los Angeles City Council.

“We think it’s unfortunate we had this ruling against us,” he said. “We’re hopeful one way or another we still will be able to achieve some relief for the people around the airport.”

The Airport Authority, made up of nine commissioners representing the city governments of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, wants to quadruple the size of the present 163,000-square-foot terminal to accommodate the 10 million passengers expected to use it annually by 2010.

The city of Los Angeles has sued the Airport Authority four times since 1977, disputing in each case the adequacy of the airport’s environmental impact reports. The first suit challenged the authority’s purchase of the airport from Lockheed Corp. In 1983, the airport began planning for a new terminal, prompting more lawsuits.

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airport officials to replace the current terminal, built in 1930, because it is too close to a runway to meet modern safety standards.

In the suit that O’Brien ruled on, lawyers for the city of Los Angeles alleged that airport officials failed to recognize the significant increase in aircraft noise that would be caused by quadrupling the size of the terminal building and nearly doubling the number of aircraft gates.

Homeowner groups in Studio City, North Hollywood, Valley Village and Sherman Oaks--located under the airport’s usual takeoff flight path--later joined the suit.

In January, O’Brien raised the homeowners’ hopes when he ruled in their favor and ordered airport officials to redo the environmental impact report.

After studying the issue again, airport officials returned with the same findings they had the first time: The number of passengers using the airport will continue to grow with or without a new terminal. Any increase in air traffic will be caused by passenger demand and airline business decisions, regardless of the size of the terminal, the study maintains.

Thus, they concluded, the new terminal itself will not significantly increase aircraft noise.

In a Dec. 9 ruling that was made public Tuesday, O’Brien did not take issue with those findings, focusing instead on whether airport officials complied with his orders to at least look into the potential for noise pollution.

“The scope of the judicial review of this process does not include a re-analysis or re-decision by the court,” he wrote.

“The court does not, indeed cannot, second-guess the decision, reverse the decision, or modify it, etc., so long as the record shows by substantial evidence that (the Airport Authority) had all the necessary information before it prior to making its decision,” he added.

Attorneys for the city of Los Angeles filed their fourth lawsuit against airport officials this month, contending that even the updated environmental report contained new, improperly analyzed information.

However, airport officials expressed confidence Tuesday that the unresolved case would eventually be dismissed by O’Brien because he has already ruled that the report is sufficient.

Neither the homeowner groups nor the city of Los Angeles are opposed to a new terminal. But they say they do not want to see the project proceed until the airport’s commissioners acknowledge and attempt to mitigate noise pollution impacts on nearby residents.

“The airport essentially presented the same case as they did the first time. It doesn’t make any sense,” said Tom Paterson, a board member of the Citizens for Fair Airport Noise Homeowners Coalition.

Bowman of the Airport Authority disagreed, saying: “Really, the issue the court dealt with is, did we do our investigation and make our decision correctly? The judge said clearly we did.

“He also said there is no right or wrong answer. Neither the judge nor anyone else has the right or authority to question our conclusion. The only thing that can be questioned is our process.”

Although airport officials intend to proceed immediately with their plans, the project is clouded by uncertainty.

Airport officials hope to build the new terminal just north of the present one, on 120 acres of land once used by Lockheed to build military aircraft. But it is not clear how much longer Lockheed will take to clean up contaminated soil on the site.

The airport also must negotiate a contract with a project management company and determine how to finance the $185-million terminal.

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NEXT STEP

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority meets Monday morning to discuss Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien’s favorable ruling. Soon after, airport officials expect to negotiate a contract with a project management company, BGP Airport Associates. Within the next two months, they expect to prepare a financial plan detailing how they hope to fund construction of the new terminal. Meanwhile, attorneys for the city of Los Angeles will go before the City Council as early as next week to ask whether the council wants to appeal the judge’s ruling.