Advisory Panel Postpones Action on Airport Plan

An 11-year battle to adopt a master plan for Van Nuys Airport stalled again Tuesday when an advisory council postponed action on a compromise hammered out by representatives of homeowners and airport business interests.

The Van Nuys Airport Advisory Council voted 5 to 3 to put off a decision, which may delay action on the compromise into the fall.

Council members said they lacked some air traffic data needed to judge the proposal.

The compromise was developed by an independent committee appointed to weigh the concerns of some San Fernando Valley residents about airport development. After the advisory council acts on it, the committee’s master plan will be sent to the Los Angeles City Council to be considered against another proposal being prepared by city airport commissioners and planners.

The committee’s compromise plan would greatly scale down the projected increase in jets and helicopters sought by the most aviation interests, while allowing some increases. It is jet and helicopter traffic that most annoys many noise protesters.

The compromise was finalized last month by the 12-member Van Nuys Airport Master Plan Committee, formed a year ago by the City Council to end bickering between homeowners and airport-based businesses.

The committee, working with airport planners, reached agreement on six areas of contention, leaving only two issues unsettled. Those two areas--dealing with specific zoning and tiered leasing fees for small versus large aircraft--are expected to be settled by a vote of the full City Council, possibly within the next six months.

Sander Winger, chairman of the master plan committee, called the compromise agreement a major step forward in adopting a 20-year plan. “We’ve been pushing this program for 11 years. This plan means real progress,” Winger said before the advisory council meeting.

The compromise would alter areas originally proposed for heavy aviation use to allow for additional transient airplane parking, and provide for restoration of an observation park for visitors, installation of a special soundproofed building for testing jet engines and limits on the number and types of aircraft permitted to be based at the airport.

City airport officials agreed to drop their long-held opposition to any plan to build a tunnel under the airport to carry through traffic on Saticoy Street, which now dead-ends against the eastern and western boundaries of the airfield.

As a compromise to balance reductions in land devoted to aviation uses, the committee also agreed to aviation uses on parts of two sites that homeowners had fought to turn into shopping centers.