Burbank, Airfield OK Accord

Ending a long-running feud, the city of Burbank and Bob Hope Airport have reached an agreement placing a 10-year moratorium on expanding or relocating the airport’s aging passenger terminal.

“There’s peace in our time. There’s detente,” said Charles Lombardo, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority. “Everyone said this deal could never be done. We’re all sort of surprised, but we’re glad about it.”

Community opposition has simmered since the 1980s over efforts by the authority to rebuild the terminal, which sits hundreds of feet closer to runways than permitted by current standards.

The agreement, approved Monday by the authority and earlier by the Burbank City Council, means new boarding gates cannot be added to the 220,000-square-foot terminal nor to the building relocated to an adjacent 58-acre parcel once designated for a new terminal.

A key concession by the city in the agreement is that the authority will be allowed to buy Star Park, a 2,060-space lot near the terminal whose fierce price wars with airport-owned parking have caused the airport to lose millions of dollars in revenue. Under state law, an airport seeking to buy land must obtain permission from the city where the land is located.

The deal is being viewed with skepticism by a grass-roots political action committee, Restore Our Airport Rights, that opposes airport expansion.

“We don’t trust them,” said the group’s chairman, Howard Rothenbach. “The agreement can be amended. Right now there’s so much trouble with the airlines that it wouldn’t be good to build a new terminal. But in five or six years, they might pull some new plans out of the cupboard.”

Councilwoman Stacey Murphy said the pact gives the city much sought-after control over future land use at the airport. Should the authority want to build a new terminal when the moratorium expires, Murphy said, “in the next seven to 10 years, they first have to prove to us that they can be good neighbors.”

Activists have long asserted that aircraft noise, pollution and vehicle traffic near the airport are at intolerable levels. The airport is served by seven airlines and handles 5 million passengers a year.

Murphy said the agreement is a victory for Burbank residents because it also requires the authority to obtain City Hall approval for any airport development.

“They agreed that we have zoning rights that they’ve never agreed to before,” she said. It means, for instance, that if the authority decides in a dozen years to build a new terminal on a parking lot, “they’d have to ask us.”

Despite the restrictions, Lombardo said he’s happy with the deal. He said the authority is confident the 75-year-old terminal can meet expected needs for 10 years.

“It really gives certainty to everybody as to what’s going to go on at the airport for the next 10 years,” he said.

The authority has said it plans to use the Star Park lot for valet parking and rental-car operations. The acquisition would give the airport a near-monopoly over parking spaces.

Parking represents at least 40% of airport revenue, officials said.

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Times staff writer Caitlin Liu contributed to this report.