Panel Backs Concept for El Toro Airport

Orange County’s plan to build a commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine base was approved in concept Tuesday by the Orange County Planning Commission.

The five-member board voted 3 to 2 to recommend approval of the county plan to supervisors, who are scheduled to cast their final vote Monday on the environmental report.

That study is among several hurdles in a long process its advocates face in getting the airport approved.

Supervisors decided in 1996 to design an airport at El Toro that would handle 28.8 million passengers a year by 2020. In recent weeks, two supervisors have said they would consider building only the first two phases of a 2,000-acre airport, which would accommodate 18.8 million annual passengers.

Capacity at John Wayne Airport, which is seven miles from El Toro on 500 acres, would remain about the same. Last year, the airport handled 7.5 million passengers.

A second airport-related meeting scheduled for Tuesday was canceled after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The Airport Commission was to vote on the El Toro plan at John Wayne Airport. But the FAA ordered all the nation’s airports closed, forcing cancellation of that meeting.

The commission previously split 2 to 2 on the plan when a fifth commissioner, Robert Cashman, missed the vote because of traffic. Cashman, an appointee of pro-airport county board Chairman Cynthia Coad, has said he would support the county plan.

Still another El Toro meeting--an informational forum in Aliso Viejo--was canceled Tuesday after the terrorist attacks.

And FAA briefings scheduled for today for Orange County elected officials in Los Angeles and Washington, were postponed. The FAA was to release a long-awaited analysis of the proposed flight paths for El Toro and how they might affect traffic at other regional airports.

Planning board members have advanced airport studies for five years by similar 3-2 votes.

Last week, more than 500 people from across Southern California jammed a Board of Supervisors hearing on the airport plan, with supporters urging El Toro to become a relief valve for overcrowded Los Angeles International Airport.