Final Hahn LAX Plan to Be Released

Mayor James K. Hahn will release his final plan to remodel aging Los Angeles International today with little fanfare -- the first time a plan to modernize the world’s fifth-busiest airport has gone to the City Council in two decades.

The release is a milestone for city officials, who have spent $126 million devising a plan to remake the airport to satisfy the sometimes conflicting goals of nearby residents, airlines and lawmakers.

But before the ink had even dried on Hahn’s 36,464-page proposal, there was general agreement at City Hall that the plan had small chance of winning City Council approval in its present form.

Despite persistent criticism about major parts of the blueprint, the $9-billion plan has changed little since it was first sketched on the back of a napkin in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Officials made only minor alterations to the mayor’s proposal in response to 3,200 comments submitted by the public. Critics said Hahn’s plan would cost too much and would not deliver on a key promise to improve security.

“If he’s moving straight forward with the old plan, I’m somewhat surprised,” said county Supervisor Don Knabe, who represents the airport area. “By his conversation in recent weeks, he seemed willing to work with us. Hopefully there will be other opportunities for conversation and not litigation.”

Indeed, Hahn said Tuesday that he was willing to entertain changes in what would be the city’s largest public works project. The plan will be considered at a joint hearing of the city airport and planning commissions May 24 and by the full City Council in late August. The last time a major airport modernization went before the council was in the early 1980s as part of the preparations for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

“I’m looking forward to working with everyone,” Hahn said. “I think that there’s a consensus that we need to move forward and do something.”

The comments mark a change in strategy. For much of the last two years, the plan’s champions, Deputy Mayor Troy Edwards and Airport Commission President Ted Stein, were unwilling to compromise, frustrating critics. Both Edwards and Stein resigned recently amid criminal investigations into whether Hahn’s administration traded contracts for campaign contributions.

The mayor defended planners’ decision not to make major changes in the LAX proposal. He said many of the 3,200 comments about his plan were similar to those received by Mayor Richard Riordan when he released his modernization proposal for LAX in 2001. Hahn said his original plan took into consideration many of the comments the public made in response to Riordan’s plan.

“There was an expectation that may not have been warranted from people who thought that 3,200 comments merited a change in plan,” Hahn said. “Our plan is really the result of the history of the work to change LAX. Our job is to make sure they haven’t raised new issues that indicate we haven’t done the kind of environmental analysis of the alternative to make sure we’ve complied with the law.”

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No Fanfare

The absence of a public event today to mark the plan’s final release is in stark contrast to the fanfare with which the original proposal was announced.

In July 2003 Hahn unveiled the draft environmental studies for his plan to a capacity crowd at a Los Angeles theater. In July 2002, he had revealed the basic outline of his vision to a packed news conference on the roof of the Terminal 4 parking structure at LAX.

Even so, the mayor’s allies said, Hahn deserves recognition for bringing the plan this far. They emphasized that he had forged a consensus that something needed to be done to improve LAX so carriers would not take flights elsewhere, harming the region’s economy.

“He should get credit for pulling the parties most involved in this together over a three-year period and working on this and keeping a focus on getting it done,” said George Keiffer, an attorney who has advised the mayor. “There’s a tendency to overlook some aspects of the mayor’s performance amid the disagreement over the plan.”

To guard against car bombs, Hahn’s plan would reroute private vehicles to a check-in center near the San Diego Freeway. The proposal also calls for demolishing Terminals 1, 2 and 3; knocking down parking structures in the central terminal area and replacing them with a terminal complex; and moving the airport’s two sets of parallel runways farther apart.

The plan also seeks to limit capacity at LAX to 78 million annual passengers by reducing the number of gates where airlines park jets.

By contrast, Riordan proposed a massive expansion that would have increased the number of annual passengers to as many as 98 million. His plan was strongly opposed by nearby communities that feared increased noise, traffic and pollution.

Environmental studies released Wednesday with Hahn’s plan, also known as Alternative D, compared his proposal with three expansion alternatives devised by Riordan.

The City Council will be asked to choose from among the four plans, or it could do nothing at all.

Hahn chose to piggyback on environmental studies for Riordan’s plan to save time and money. It took an army of consultants to finish the 59-volume plan, which is available for $10,698 a copy and fills 18 compact discs. The plan will be delivered today to 51 libraries in Southern California.

In making its decision, the council probably will look to Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski -- who represents communities around LAX -- for guidance. She is creating a compromise plan that would leave the airport largely intact and have a price tag only a fraction of the cost of Hahn’s proposal.

Miscikowski’s $3-billion proposal features a consolidated rental car center and an elevated tram -- elements in Hahn’s plan. Her proposal would move construction of the controversial check-in center to a second phase that would not proceed without lengthy public review.

But the unusual method that Miscikowski would use to implement her proposal has alarmed residents and others.

To work within existing environmental studies, she suggests that the council approve Hahn’s plan and send it to the Federal Aviation Administration. Her proposal would be spelled out in a so-called specific plan -- a document required under city law that details what projects the city is allowed to build in the airport area.

Miscikowski isn’t the only influential leader calling for last-minute changes to Hahn’s plan.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Knabe sent a letter to Hahn last week asking the mayor to order a cost-benefit analysis of his proposal’s security aspects, particularly the need for the remote check-in center in Westchester.

At Harman’s request, Rand Corp. analyzed Hahn’s plan last year and found that it would leave passengers more vulnerable by concentrating them at the check-in facility.

“Making LAX’s operations, personnel and passengers safe and secure must be the paramount objective of any modernization plan,” Harman said in a statement. “Unless and until [Alternative] D is subjected to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of security improvements, the plan fails to meet that goal.”

Hahn said that although he agreed with Harman and Knabe that their attorneys should meet and discuss whether changes could be made to existing environmental studies, he did not support moving forward with a cost-benefit analysis.

“I’m always a little leery of the concept of a cost-benefit analysis when it comes to security, because I don’t know how you put a price on the human tragedy that this nation suffered on Sept. 11,” Hahn said.

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Major Issue

The key question before the council will be whether it can significantly change the proposal to reflect critics’ concerns without starting the planning process over. Federal and state laws prohibit officials from making significant changes in public works projects without updating environmental studies.

“Any modifications they might need to make to [environmental studies] might require some tweaks here and there,” said Barbara Higgins, an attorney at Los Angeles-based Weston Benshoof who represents the Los Angeles Airlines Airport Affairs Committee, a group of airlines at LAX. “But the city certainly would not be starting at Square One.”

Airport officials have devised an ambitious schedule for Hahn’s plan, which is slated to travel through various city agencies in the spring and summer and appear before the FAA by the fall. The city hopes to break ground on the project next year.

Hahn’s proposal is similar in some aspects to an LAX plan adopted by the council Jan. 12, 1981. That plan, designed to increase capacity to 40 million annual passengers, encouraged the use of remote terminals to “reduce the number of private vehicles using the airport.” It also suggested that the city create a regional system of airports.

“Further increases in passenger volume are planned to be accommodated at Palmdale International Airport and satellite airports,” planners wrote.

Today, LAX handles about 54 million passengers a year. Palmdale Airport has no commercial flights.