Home Value Report Cited by El Toro Airport Foes

Opponents of reuse plans for El Toro Marine Corps Air Station unearthed a 1994 federal study Wednesday to support their assertion that property values would plummet if an airport is built--even in North County communities that haven’t expressed much alarm about the proposal.

“This is not anecdotal,” said Larry Agran, former Irvine mayor and chairman of the anti-airport group Project ‘99, as he waved the federal study at a news conference. “I cannot imagine any scenario here where the impact on housing wouldn’t be at least as bad as the worst scenario” in the report.

But airport proponents dismissed Agran’s analysis as a scare tactic and said the federal report fails to analyze a region comparable to Orange County. Commercial planes will be quieter than existing military jets, they argue, and a no-home zone currently surrounding the base will protect residents from noise.

“Nowhere in America do you have an airport where a 16,000-acre no-home zone already exists,” said Bruce Nestande, who heads the successful pro-airport campaign. “They should try and compare apples and apples.”

In the fierce debate over converting the retiring military base to a commercial airport, facts are slippery and emotions run high. The fight over housing values marks one of the more murky battlegrounds in the airport war, with both sides contending the numbers are on their side.

The 1994 Federal Aviation Administration report on the effect of airport noise on housing values looked at neighborhoods near airports in Los Angeles, New York and Baltimore.

The portion on Los Angeles International Airport showed that moderately priced homes in neighborhoods hard hit by noise were valued at about 19% less than comparable homes in a neighborhood where airport noise wasn’t a problem. Other factors, such as crime and the quality of schools, were the same in both neighborhoods, the study said.

The FAA study was undertaken to see whether the methods used could be applied to a larger study.

But the report stressed that results could not be used to make general conclusions about noise and housing values “since there was such a wide variation in the extent of impact--from negligible to significant--and only a limited number [of neighborhoods] around a small sample of airports . . . was considered.”

The Orange County Board of Supervisors in December endorsed building a commercial airport when the 4,700-acre military base is closed in mid-1999. Eight South County cities and a group of activists opposed to the plan have already filed lawsuits to block the project.

The dispute has sharply divided the county, with opponents talking about waging a taxpayers’ revolt and boycotting businesses that support the airport. Countywide, voters have twice endorsed a commercial airport at El Toro as a way to create jobs and boost tourism.

While Agran said the county could lose tens of millions of dollars yearly in property tax income if an airport is built, research by Louis Masotti, director of the real estate management program at UC Irvine’s Graduate School of Management, concludes the opposite.

“Home and property values are improved by proximity to airports,” Masotti wrote in his 1996 report, offering John Wayne Airport, nestled near some of the county’s most valuable real estate, as a case in point.

“Every study that I have seen concludes the same thing, and that is that values adjacent to airports are much higher than values as you trend away from the airport,” Masotti said Wednesday. “An airport is an asset for valuation, unless you’re under the flight path.”

But Greg Gilroy, a commercial real estate broker and resident of Irvine’s Northwood neighborhood, said home values in his area have already nose-dived, in part, he believes, because of the proposed airport.

“Our median home prices have dropped 30%,” said Gilroy, who is volunteering his time with Project ’99. “That means that most of my neighbors, and I, don’t own our houses anymore. The bank does.”

According to the county’s proposal, the bulk of takeoffs are expected to travel east out of El Toro with a minority of flights heading north before turning directly over Irvine Lake. Landings are expected to come from the south.

Agran’s group predicted that the number of northbound flights will be higher and could affect property values as far north as Fullerton.

“Tustin will be devastated by this,” Agran said. “Planes will be flying over Anaheim and Fullerton.”

David Ellis, a hired consultant to pro-airport forces, countered that cities as far north as Fullerton cannot possibly be affected.

“That’s 20 miles,” he said. “That would be like saying Encino property values are affected by LAX,” Ellis said.