Development Near Airport

Your editorial, “Noise, Needs Must Balance,” May 17, fails to mention what I consider to be the other half of the equation. While transportation officials look for solutions to minimize the noise impact on communities surrounding Van Nuys Airport, including the implementation of more restrictions on airport operations, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission has given the green light to a proposed high-density project located under the airport’s flight path.

Ted Stein, former city planning commissioner and airport commissioner, has received the zoning variance necessary to start his development of 23 condominiums only 1.3 miles from the end of the longest and busiest runway at Van Nuys Airport. The Nakada Nursery site where these condominiums will be erected is not only in a noise-sensitive area, according to the Van Nuys Airport Part 150 Study, but in a “noise alley,” according to the anti-airport group, “Stop the Noise.”

If we are looking for ways to extract more concessions and impose more limitations on the airport’s tenants and users, why are we not imposing similar restrictions and the like [on] developers and their continued encroachment upon the airport?

Once again the leaders of the city to the south have shown us that common sense has taken a back seat to politics as usual, in decisions concerning the Valley.

SAL DEL VALLE

North Hills