Panel to Discuss Ways to Mute Airport Noise

The Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council will hear from one of its members about ways to deal with airport noise, including land-use planning methods of alleviating the effects of aircraft noise on residents.

Sandor Winger will report at Tuesday’s council meeting on ideas discussed at a National Organization for a Sound-Controlled Environment conference, which he attended in July.

“I’d like to see what we can do to take a look at the surrounding area and see what we would suggest to do in helping homeowners,” Winger said. Among the suggestions were FAA grants available to help insulate homes in the immediate area of the noise.

“It’s a remedy,” he said. “It may not be a perfect remedy, but it’s a good one. It’s a realization that we have to do something different.”

But Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino and member of the Coalition to Stop the Noise, said the airport needs to look beyond insulating homes, and at regulating the noise being generated there.

“They need to aggressively go after the noise problem,” he said. “They need to put in noise regulations. . . . It is a totally irrational solution if the solution is to soundproof a handful of homes around the airport. There are thousands of homes miles away from the airport that are bombarded with the noise.”

The council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Concord I Room of the Airtel Plaza Hotel, 7277 Valjean Ave., Van Nuys.