Squabbles Stall Airport Expansion in Burbank : Aviation: Political quarrels over noise and traffic keep vision of larger, more modern facility out of reach.

Fifteen years after it was proposed, the dream of a new terminal at Burbank Airport appears no closer to reality than it was back then--when annual passenger loads were half the current levels and the little-known airfield was perceived as a backwater.

Even though nearly 5 million passengers a year crowd the 65-year-old terminal, political squabbles over noise and traffic keep the vision of a safer, more modern, more spacious facility out of reach. It may be well into the next century before any construction begins.

But there is little disagreement that something must be done.

The existing airport is close to bursting during heavy travel periods such as now, the week before Christmas. The Federal Aviation Administration has said again and again that the terminal building is too close to the runways. Airlines have little room to grow. And the passenger amenities are less than posh.

“Even if you build nothing, the number of passengers coming through the door will still go up,” airport Executive Director Tom Greer said. “What will the impacts be if we do nothing? Overcrowding will bring code violations. Our sewers will be overloaded. . . . And we are driven by the fact that the FAA has said we cannot do nothing.”

What to do and how to do it, though, remain sticking points. About the only certainty is that someone--some city, some neighborhood, some homeowner--will be left out and angered by whatever happens.

“I would say the whole thing is headed toward litigation,” said Burbank City Councilman Bob Kramer, who opposes current plans for expansion. “The battle is going to continue for the next several years and there are no solutions in sight.”

Critics such as Kramer fear that the airport’s plans for a new 465,000-square-foot terminal--triple the size of the existing building--would mean far more planes making noise in the skies above Burbank and far more passengers clogging city streets. The most vocal opposition to a new terminal comes, understandably, from neighborhoods that surround the airport. These areas already bear the brunt of most of the airport’s noise, which has declined steadily since 1978, according to figures reported to federal officials.

Neighbors in the city of Los Angeles have on three occasions sued--and lost--in their efforts to block expansion of the airport, which is bounded on three sides by Los Angeles. They complain that jet noise affects Los Angeles disproportionately because takeoff and landing patterns pass over them more often than Burbank. A current case is on appeal.

In Burbank, the City Council has vowed repeatedly to fight expansion at every turn unless the other two cities that govern the airport--Glendale and Pasadena--address Burbank’s concerns. Burbank wants flights restricted during early-morning and overnight hours, a smaller terminal and protections against heavy street traffic. Earlier this month, Burbank threatened its own legal action against the expansion and retained a nationally prominent aviation law firm to protect its interests.

Burbank’s objections have sparked tensions on the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, the three-city board that runs the airport. There have even been accusations that the appointed commission negotiated a land purchase for a new terminal behind Burbank’s back, which further soured the traditionally strong relationship among the cities.

“This is affecting our relationship in a profound way,” said Ted McConkey, a Burbank city councilman elected earlier this year on a tide of anti-airport sentiment. McConkey said the appointed commissioners from the other two cities are acting recklessly in their push to expand the airport. “The cities of Glendale and Pasadena refuse to take any responsibility for their commissioners, and it’s having a very chilling impact on our relationship with them,” he said.

Added Glendale City Councilwoman Eileen Givens: “We’ve been working for the past few years to build this Arroyo Verdugo subregion, and expand areas of cooperation, so when something like this comes along and seems to get bitter and nastier, and isn’t handled, isn’t dealt with, it seems to permeate other relationships. That’s one of the reasons I think this needs to be resolved.”

But the fighting promises to intensify later this week when the Airport Authority meets to discuss, among other things, the purchase of 140 acres next to the airport from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin as a site for a new terminal. The purchase is perceived by opponents as the first step toward construction.

“It’s imminent that the cash deal between Lockheed and the airport will come to fruition very shortly,” said Philip E. Berlin, one of Burbank’s three appointees to the authority board. “Once that happens, it’s all over.”

To an outsider, it might be tough to understand what all the fuss is about. Projections show demand for flights out of Burbank will only grow in years to come. Some forecast as many as 10 million passengers a year traveling in and out of Burbank by 2010. Already, the concourses are crowded with passengers unable to find chairs during busy morning and afternoon rushes. And behind the scenes, facilities such as baggage handling are crowded and primitive.

Safety experts say a new terminal would reduce the likelihood of catastrophic accidents. The facility spins off millions of dollars in economic benefits to the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. And noise at the airport--the cornerstone of the debate--has actually decreased in the 17 years since it was sold to the three cities by Lockheed.

Each side in the debate boasts its own set of numbers to prove or disprove the airport’s potential impacts, both positive and negative.

According to data compiled by the airport and reported to the FAA, the area disturbed by what federal officials deem “unacceptable” levels of noise has fallen nearly 95%--from 403 acres in 1978 to less than 28 in 1992--largely due to quieter jets.

Yet at the same time, complaints about noise have jumped all over the map--up one month, down the next and often corresponding to the level of public rancor over airport noise. For instance, complaints more than tripled after this year’s April municipal elections in Burbank, when candidates were attacking the airport on the stump and in the news media.

“Noise goes up and down, but the trend is to go down,” said John Mills, a supervisor at Acoustical Analysis Associates, the Canoga Park company that monitors noise for the airport. “I’d say that 1978 was probably about the worst time in terms of noise exposure.”

FAA spokesman Mitch Barker said noise issues nationwide almost always boil down to perception and tolerance. “From the calls I get from people complaining, noise is the perception of aircraft,” Barker said. “The more people are aware of the aircraft, the more they feel exposed to noise.”

Barker said the airport complies with FAA noise regulations.

But how the airport measures its noise has been criticized by McConkey and others, who say it does not accurately reflect the degrees to which the noise bothers people. “The method they use is open to debate,” McConkey said. “Basically, what they are doing is taking the noise and averaging it out.”

Sound is measured by monitoring stations around the airport. Decibel levels are calculated and then averaged out between measurements for the month. Old noise standards held that sustained exposure to 70 decibels--about the level of a normal conversation--or more was excessive. Those standards were lowered to 65 decibels in 1990.

“The planes may be quieter, but they are flying more often and for longer hours,” McConkey said. Another observer posed the question differently: Which would be more annoying, being pelted every minute or so with pingpong balls or every few hours with a basketball?

The airport’s Greer responded that the facility “peaked too soon” by requiring airlines to fly quieter jets into Burbank long before the federal government did so. As a result, there were several years in the late 1980s when jets not only made less noise, but there were also fewer jets to make noise.

Today, about 106 passenger flights leave and land at Burbank daily. Despite its constraints, Burbank remains a convenient alternative to Los Angeles International Airport, particularly for budget travelers to the Bay Area or Sacramento.

Critics of expansion fear a new terminal with additional gates and more amenities would create a crush of new travelers and new flights, a contention that supporters discount, but that many analysts say is, in part, true.

“There are only so many flights that can fly in and out of the airport every day,” Pasadena Vice Mayor Chris Holden said. “Building a new physical structure in and of itself is not going to increase the noise. You’ll still have the same number of planes taking off and landing.”

Analysts said the single-biggest creator of demand in airline travel is price. If the price is right, they say, passengers will line up behind a chain-link fence in the rain to get where they want to go. Conversely, the most luxurious building would be largely empty if tickets to San Francisco cost $500.

“It’s a very complex interplay of factors,” said Denver University geographer Andrew Goetz, who is writing a book about the recently completed Denver International Airport. “Just because you expand a facility does not mean it will grow.”

Others pointed to John Wayne Airport in Orange County as an example. Despite an old terminal that was widely recognized as inadequate and was not replaced until 1990, the number of passengers and flights at John Wayne continued to climb because fares were reasonable and planes went where people wanted to go.

Phil Roberts, chairman of the consulting firm Roberts, Roach & Associates, said new terminals can create small jumps in demand. “A new terminal makes it more convenient for passengers who already use the airport,” Roberts said. “It makes it more attractive to the airlines and, to the extent that they can increase service, it increases the number of flights.”

For instance, Southwest Airlines, which handles more flights in and out of Burbank than any other airline, could use additional gates to turn passengers around more quickly and to handle delayed flights that otherwise might clog its system.

“We’d like to spread out our operation to make it more efficient,” spokeswoman Linda Burke-Rutherford said. “We have very tight spaces to deal with. In terms of workers behind the scenes, it’s very tight. A new terminal would give us the opportunity to grow.”

But Burke-Rutherford acknowledged there is only so much demand for air service in Burbank. Because of restrictions against lengthening the runways, the airport will never serve big jets required for travel overseas. Nor will it probably ever compete against LAX for long-haul domestic flights.

What it does, however, is spin millions of dollars indirectly into surrounding communities, through rental cars, meals, hotel stays and other services to visitors. About $3.7 million is generated every year through property tax alone.

The Burbank Chamber of Commerce has declined to enter the fray directly, in part because its membership’s opinions are as divided as those throughout the rest of the city. In a recent chamber survey, a roughly equal number of members strongly agreed as strongly disagreed that a new terminal should be as big as possible.

“These debates are generally not settled on economic points,” said Darryl Jenkins, a professor at New York University. “These are always emotional issues to the people involved.”

Indeed, the emotions have run so high in recent weeks that Burbank Mayor Dave Golonski proposed a cooling-off period that would allow the three cities to resolve their differences with the help of a mediator. Glendale City Council members have also endorsed the idea. Pasadena has yet to take up the issue.

Yet the debate may quickly turn hot again this week as the authority discusses the possible purchase of the old “skunk works” property north of the existing terminal as a site for the new facility. In a letter to Burbank Vice Mayor Susan Spanos, Lockheed Martin Vice President Vince Marafino said the company wants to hammer out a deal by the end of the year.

Burbank officials cried foul last month when they learned that Airport Authority representatives from Glendale and Pasadena were meeting with Lockheed Martin, planning the land purchase, in what was perceived as an effort to circumvent Burbank’s opposition.

The Airport Authority’s rules governing the acquisition of debt require a so-called super majority from each city. In other words, two of each city’s three commissioners must agree to take the authority into debt--a move Burbank officials have repeatedly refused to take.

Airport managers denied there was any subterfuge. They said they opted to pay for the land out of current assets, which would not require Burbank’s approval.

Burbank’s protests were perceived by officials from the airport and other cities as disingenuous. They pointed out it has been public knowledge since 1990 that the airport wanted the Lockheed land for a terminal. And earlier this year, Burbank City Manager Robert “Bud” Ovrom sent the City Council a memo explaining that acquiring the land did not necessarily set the stage for terminal construction.

Any construction would need Burbank’s endorsement because the project would require the airport to take on debt. Some estimates run as high as $300 million for the entire project--far more than the airport can afford out of current revenues.

Last year, the airport, which is managed under contract by Airport Group International Inc., earned a $6.2-million profit and has about $120 million in retained earnings and federal grants. Although airport critics said they don’t particularly like the direction the airport is headed, they acknowledged it is well-managed day to day--even though the supervising Airport Authority is under investigation by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury for unusually high legal and travel expenses.

Airport Group International was paid $5.6 million last year to run the airport, a fee that included administrative as well as operational expenses for workers such as parking attendants and shuttle drivers. The group’s contract comes up for renewal in 1998.

Even if the authority is able to sway Burbank’s delegation, any expansion would surely face more opposition from Los Angeles residents, who complain that the airport’s flight paths cross their neighborhoods too often.

Although Los Angeles has spent years fighting similar lawsuits from other municipalities over LAX and Ontario airports, the city has pressed on with its legal challenges to reduce the noise impact on its neighborhoods.

“We think it’s unfair that all flights take off over North Hollywood and Valley Village,” said Tom Henry, planning deputy to Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs. “We’re not against any type of expansion. We’re not against a new terminal. The old one is antiquated and dangerous, but it’s not fair that all the flights take off over us.”

Yet for all the hue and cry, the dispute has had little effect on the passengers and regular users of the airport. Limousine driver Cy Allen said he knows nothing of the rancor surrounding the expansion project, but said he would like to see a larger terminal.

But passenger Paul Higa, a regular flier from Santa Barbara, said the airport’s size is irrelevant. “It has to be more efficient, more convenient,” he said. “Expanding alone won’t increase business.”

Times special correspondent Steve Ryfle contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Burbank Airport Debate

Concern over noise and traffic are keeping the vision of a safer, more modern, more spacious Burbank airport facility out of reach.

The area affected by aircraft noise has shrunk:

The noise “footprint” around Burbank has been reduced from more than 400 acres to less than 30. The footprint is an area that has noise levels reaching 65 decibels.

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The number of noise complaints is erratic:

The number of calls complaining about airport noise has dropped the last two years.

1986 and 1987: Estimated two-year total was 1,200 calls

1995: Through November

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But critics content that a new facility, with more air traffic, would worsen the problem:

The proposed terminal would be completed in two phases. The first phase is scheduled to be completed in 1998 and the second phase in 2010.

Source: Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority