North County Group Wants Voters to Alter Flight Paths at El Toro

A group of North County officials who favor changing the way planes would land at the proposed El Toro airport said Wednesday that they want to put their proposal before voters.

Villa Park Councilman Robert E. McGowan, a retired airline pilot and air-traffic controller, said he has given up trying to convince Orange County officials that changing the direction of landings and takeoffs at the airport would make it safer, more efficient and more palatable to North County residents.

The “Orange County Public Benefit Initiative,” which supporters hope to place on the March ballot, would amend the 1994 voter-approved ballot measure calling for an airport at the closed Marine base.

The proposed size of the airport and a park around it would stay the same. But instead of planes landing from the south and taking off to the north, the initiative would reverse those flight paths.

That plan would send the planes toward the coast over Irvine Co. land that’s currently undeveloped but planned for at least 2,500 homes.

The developer has objected to McGowan’s alternative, which he has worked on over the last year.

Supporters of turning the air base into a large urban park already have begun collecting signatures for their own March initiative to overturn the 1994 ballot measure.

McGowan said both ideas are flawed--the county’s airport plan because of its design and the park because of the costs to build and maintain it, and its potential cost to taxpayers.

Park advocates say the park will not need public money.

“Everyone’s looking for an answer to opposing the Great Park,” McGowan said. “This is a common-sense alternative to both.”

Until April, McGowan was a member of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, a 15-city coalition supporting an airport at El Toro.

McGowan and Villa Park quit the group after failing to persuade county officials to fully consider his plan. At least two other North County cities have threatened to pull out because of concerns about the county’s plan.

County aviation consultants analyzed an airport alternative similar to McGowan’s--called the Wildlands Ranch alternative--during the airport’s environmental review.

Officials rejected it, saying it could bring noise over existing and future homes in Irvine.

Plans are already underway to build those 2,500 homes. The city is holding public hearings this month on development maps submitted by the Irvine Co.

McGowan said his initiative will be submitted next week to elections officials.

Supporters must collect 71,206 signatures from registered voters to place the initiative on the ballot, unless supervisors vote to do so.