BURBANK AIRPORT EXPANSION : Growth Doesn’t Fly for a Multitude of Reasons : Homeowners would lose because of noise, the city would be saddled with enormous debt, while outside interests would reap the benefits.

The legitimate concerns of Burbank residents have recently led to the election of two new City Council members in essentially a one-issue campaign--no airport growth. These concerns have even caused our pro-airport-growth mayor to side with the anti-airport forces for the first time, in voting to tell our Airport Authority members to turn down the airport’s bond issue.

The opposition to Burbank Airport expansion runs far beyond Burbank’s borders to the south and west, where in some cases jet takeoff noise is even more disruptive than it is in Burbank. It’s true that the residents of the affected areas all bought homes with the knowledge that the airport existed. But we each made our own evaluations of the existing noise and determined we could live with that level of airport activity.

We did not, however, anticipate a dramatic increase in flights, or an airport that would have to drum up increased business to pay off enormous bond indebtedness.

In fact, judging from the size of the bond issues that are being mentioned to build a new terminal, it is apparent that the airport will be desperate to increase the number of flights to generate the revenue to pay off those bonds. When revenue falls short, what will become of the current nighttime flight curfew? The out-of-town creditors won’t care whether we sleep well at night in Burbank. They will just want their money and will demand that the Airport Authority raise it any way it can.

Yes, it appears that the federal government wants the terminal moved farther from the runways (although it was only recently that the Airport Authority has admitted that this is only a suggestion, not a demand or requirement). I understand the safety issues involved. But I have tried, and I can’t figure out when the federal government told the Airport Authority to increase the size of the terminal by even one square foot.

Much has been said by supporters of an expanded terminal about the financial benefits of the airport. But what about the financial liabilities of the airport--including the more than 100 acres of land the Airport Authority wants to remove from the tax rolls?

And has anyone calculated an expanded airport’s effect on property values under the flight paths? Any large increase in flights at the airport will certainly end up depressing real estate values, since people won’t want to buy homes affected by such noise, pollution and danger.

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Combine the two and where will the tax base be to pay for Burbank city services? You can only tax people so much to use Burbank Airport before they will turn back to LAX. Has anyone noticed that Denver’s new airport has already lost a major airline because of the high cost of landing at that tremendously indebted facility?

Anti-airport-growth folks are not anti-progress. Progress is good. Progress happens when a vaccine eliminates a fatal disease. Progress happens when nations formerly at war agree to work together for their common good.

Progress is not the destruction of neighborhoods filled with homeowners and taxpayers who bought homes trusting that public agencies would not attempt to jeopardize their investments, just to satisfy the greed of a few outsiders who want to enrich themselves at any cost.