Program Muffles Airport’s Sound, Residents’ Fury

About 50 times a day, windows and bric-a-brac on shelves rattled. Hanging plates and pictures banged against the walls. By the time a jet was over Diana Raygoza’s Burbank home, the whole place shook. Forget talking on the phone. Forget TV.

That was before Raygoza agreed to allow the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to soundproof her Evergreen Street home at the federal government’s expense. Now, when her doors and windows are closed, her plates and bric-a-brac vibrate with a faint “tap, tap, tap.”

Less than a mile from the end of Runway 15-33, Raygoza’s home is among 3,100 in Burbank and Sun Valley within irritating earshot of Burbank Airport. By 2015, airport officials plan to spend about $120 million insulating those homes to reduce the jet noise indoors.

“We’re reaching out to the noisiest areas and insulating the interior of homes to being below 45 decibels,” said airport spokesman Victor Gill.

Homes in areas where aircraft noise exceeds an average of 65 decibels over a 24-hour period are eligible for the soundproofing. Currently, there are about 240 acres considered incompatible for residential use under state standards, but the authority plans to reduce the incompatible acreage to zero in the next 14 years, Gill said.

That means insulating about 300 homes every year with solid core doors, glass insulated screen doors, double windows, weather stripping, attic insulation, central air conditioning and sometimes a new roof. The cost averages $30,000 to $40,000 a home.

With 80% paid by the Federal Aviation Administration and a 20% match from the authority, the homeowner pays nothing in most cases, officials said.

The FAA money comes from a 10% ticket tax paid by airline passengers. The authority is paying its portion from revenue generated by a $3 airport fee paid by each departing passenger.

The authority also will pay up to $5,000 per home to correct building code violations, such as garage conversions completed without permits. Such deficiencies have to be corrected to make the home eligible for the soundproofing program, Gill said.

“Our goals are . . . to make a difference in the quality of life for people, and over the longer term to try to eliminate the uncertainty between the airport and its neighbors,” he said.

Relations between the airport and its neighbors have been strained for decades, particularly since the late 1960s when commercial airlines began flying jets in and out of Burbank. The strain peaked in 1983 when more than 600 residents of Burbank, North Hollywood and Sunland joined in a lawsuit against the Airport Authority, alleging property damage and personal injury because of jet noise.

A state appellate court ruled in 1990 that the airport had acquired the right to fly over the 600 homes because homeowners had not filed their lawsuit within five years after noise levels reached their highest mark. In this case, the date was 1973, the court stated.

In order to receive the free insulation under the current soundproofing program, homeowners must grant the airport a “prescriptive avigation easement,” or permission to fly over their properties forever while forfeiting their right to sue the airport for jet noise.

Some Fear Program Will Lead to Expansion

Even those who accepted the insulation upgrades are concerned that the program is paving the way for a bigger and louder airport.

“People are worried because they have insulated all these houses now, they’re going to increase the number of flights,” Raygoza said.

The city of Burbank has long been at loggerheads with the airport over expansion and has demanded that it establish a mandatory 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. flight curfew. The city is neutral on the home soundproofing program, said City Manager Bud Ovrom.

“We have never opposed it, never championed it,” he said.

By July 1, 209 homes in Burbank and Sun Valley had been insulated against aircraft noise, with 50 more under construction and an additional 90 set to begin in the fall. Four schools in the impact areas also have been soundproofed.

Similar programs are being established at airports nationwide, including Los Angeles and San Diego, said FAA spokesman Jerry Snyder. The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners last week approved a noise study at Van Nuys Airport that could lead to a $15-million soundproofing program partly paid for by the FAA.

But while new doors, windows and air conditioning may seem a windfall to some, eligible Burbank residents have been slow to jump at the offer. When the airport authority started the program about four years ago, its goal was to have 12 homeowners sign up. Only nine came forward, Gill said.

The sticking point for Burbank resident Ray Petri was his leaded-glass front door. They said it had to go, and he told them to buzz off.

Petri said he has already made improvements to his home of 36 years and he likes it the way it is.

“I was hoping to make a trade-off,” he said. “I want a new roof, but they wouldn’t give it to me, so I said, ‘No deal.’ Besides, who wants to sit in the house all the time? During the day it’s not bad.”