Application for Terminal Is Withdrawn

Frustrated by efforts to stall its plans for a terminal building, Burbank Airport’s governing board narrowly voted Friday to withdraw its application for the project from the city of Burbank.

Airport officials said the move--borne out of Burbank’s failure to approve airport safety measures and the city’s call this week for a new environmental impact report--gives momentum to its plans for an alternative terminal site.

“We have spent years trying to acquire and build a newer, safer terminal on the former Lockheed B-6 property,” said Gerald Briggs, who represents Glendale on the nine-member Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. “Accordingly, we have started planning on a new alternative terminal on property which we currently own.”

Airport officials said they are considering a second site on about 41 acres on the southwest side of the airport. That land is zoned for airport use, which they say limits Burbank’s ability to control development of the property under state law.

But Charles Lombardo, a Burbank representative on the Airport Authority, disputed the notion the airport would ever build on a new site and said touting the alternative would only lead to more acrimony.

“We’ve already been through enough political and legal infighting,” Lombardo said. “I still prefer to think that negotiation and compromise is the best approach to settling this issue.”

In a letter to Burbank Mayor Bill Wiggins, Airport Authority President Carl Meseck said the airport’s action was precipitated by the city of Burbank’s announcement Tuesday that it would prepare a new environmental impact report.

Meseck also cited the city’s “unnecessary linkage of the Authority’s Runway Safety Applications with approval of the terminal,” which he said threatens to “compromise this important safety initiative.”

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Late last year the Airport Authority took several actions aimed at beefing up airport safety. Six people had been injured in March when a Southwest Airlines 737 skidded off the runway, broke through safety barriers and came to rest near a gas station on Hollywood Way.

The airport safety plan, which requires Burbank’s approval and help through a $25-million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration, called for acquiring several parcels to create a “safety zone” next to the eastern end of Burbank Airport’s east-west runway.

It also recommended the city allow installation of collapsible barriers at the end of the runway, which officials said could stop a Boeing 737 traveling at up to 50 knots.

Briggs and others said linking safety with approval of the terminal project threatens to inflict serious damage on relations between the city and the airport, which had been attempting to forge a compromise on the terminal project since August 1999.

Peter Kirsch, Burbank’s special counsel on airport issues, said the city had no choice but to move forward on a new environmental impact report to comply with state law.

“The Authority made the decision to apply for the runway projects before we had completed a joint safety plan,” Kirsch said. “We’re still willing to work on completing that plan and implementing as early as state law allows.”

Airport officials have been seeking to build a new terminal for two decades to accommodate growing demand, which now stands at 4.7 million passengers annually. The current terminal also is too close to the airport’s east-west runway to meet modern standards.