We are sending you this E-mail as you have requested to be notified concerning the Van Nuys airport
6:30 pm study session, an opportunity to ask question and for most people the first opportunity to see the six volume plan and DEIR which is a stack over 12 inches high. The Hearing starts at 7:30 PM where you will have only 3 minutes to comment on the million word study. We have some of the documents on this website The last volume (6) was just made available a week ago we have added it to our website temporarily as a PDF File. We will convert it to a regular file (HTML) later
See our Website and all the Updates are archived on our site.
Government: Master plan for the future of Van Nuys aviation center to be presented tonight. Lively discussion is expected.
By STEPHANIE STASSEL, Times Staff Writer
City planning officials expect a large crowd
and a lively discussion tonight at a public hearing on the proposed Van Nuys
Airport master plan, which will dictate future development of the nation's
busiest general-aviation facility.
The document, initiated by the Los Angeles City
Council nine years ago, lays out 13 scenarios for using--or not using--113
undeveloped acres at the 73-year-old airport. Public comments will be taken into
consideration before planning officials make recommendations to two area
planning committees, city planner Marc Woersching said.
"What the public preference is will be a
major factor in coming up with my recommendation," he said, adding that he
has "no firm opinion" on the issue. "It will be based on what I
and my department feel is best for the public good." A 6:30 p.m. public workshop, in which officials
from Los Angeles World Airports will answer questions about the master plan,
will be followed by the public hearing at 7:30 at the Airtel Plaza Hotel, 7277
Valjean St., Van Nuys. A room able to hold 500 people has been secured for the
event.
The only other public hearing on the master plan was held in December 1996, when nearby homeowners, business and aviation tenants of the airport commented on the plan and environmental impact report, which detailed scenarios ranging from developing all 113 acres to closing the airport and using the total 730 acres for commercial buildings and homes.
Los Angeles World Airports, formally the city's Department of Airports, released a so-called "compromise alternative" in summer 1997 that favored developing 70 of the 113 acres for aviation and 43 acres for other uses. [Note this document was keep virtually a secret until last week when they begrudgingly made it available in electronic form] A year ago, the staff of Los Angeles World Airports responded to letters from proponents and opponents of the master plan in a report to the city planning department.
After tonight's public hearing, state law requires that the master plan go before the county Airport Land Use Commission, which will recommend one of the 13 suggested scenarios.
In the spring, the plan will go to the South
Valley and North Valley Area Planning Commissions, with a recommendation from
the city's planning department attached.
The Board of Airport Commissioners and the city
Planning Commission will then consider the plan before it goes to the mayor, two
City Council committees, and finally the full council, which probably won't
happen until later this year or in early 2002, according to Woersching. [about
the same time the Valley will vote on creating a new city which will then
control VNY]
Stop the Noise!, a coalition of 28 homeowners
groups, and the Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club are expected to be
represented at tonight's hearing.
Gerald Silver, who heads up the homeowners
coalition, said his group wants a limit of no more than 107 jets and 44
helicopters at the airport, the numbers it held in 1996. In 1999, the most
current year available, there were 128 jets and 65 helicopters at the airport.
Orith Goldberg Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners plans to discuss today a leasing policy that will include raising rental rates at Van Nuys Airport. The leasing policy would establish the terms and conditions for future leases and for setting rental rates at the fair market value based on independent fee appraisals, said Stacy Geere, spokeswoman for the Van Nuys Airport.
"This is a leasing policy that would apply to all four airports in the Los Angeles World Airports system (LAX, Palmdale, Van Nuys and Ontario. In the case of Van Nuys Airport, rates have not been adjusted for 10 years."
This morning's meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at Los Angeles International Airport, in the Samuel Greenberg Room at 1 World Way. Some tenants and neighbors of the Van Nuys airport have accused Los Angeles airport officials of trying, with rent hikes, to drive small businesses out of the San Fernando Valley airport. [Approved without change at that meeting]
Administrators for Los Angeles World Airports in January told a commission studying the possible breakup of the city that the Van Nuys Airport's $7.75 million in revenues was not enough to cover its expenses.
At its Feb. 6 meeting, the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council complained they had not been given enough time to adequately review the lease policy for the Van Nuys facility.
It's funny, I've lived in this Valley since '73 and every place I've resided in was subject to noise from planes to and from Van Nuys Airport.
My wife and I moved to Tarzana three years ago and have heard the planes and jets but I am already used to it. What I don't like is the low-flying police helicopters that have become a nightly affair.
I am becoming afraid for this once-quiet but still beautiful little corner of the constantly deteriorating Valley. -- Thomas Nave, Tarzana
By Jesse Hiestand, Staff Writer
VAN NUYS -- In a setback in their battle over jet noise at Van Nuys Airport, residents said Thursday they have just learned the city complaint hotline they've called for 15 years is merely a public relations tool for the airport. Homeowners are furious over a recent City Attorney's Office legal brief that says a citizen's complaint "has no bearing on whether appropriate action is taken by the airport" to silence noisy jets.
Instead, airport officials said they use the calls to allow people to vent their concerns, but the thousands of calls they receive rarely are used to identify pilots who violate noise rules. "We feel betrayed -- we thought all these complaints would make a change in the noise," said Marsha Williams, who has logged about 1,000 complaints about noisy jets over her Sherman Oaks home in the past 18 months.
Airport administrators said the toll-free hotline was never intended to guide noise policy or impact jet operations at the nation's busiest general aviation airport.
"The original purpose was to allow the community to voice their concerns and provide information back to the community and allow the airport to track and examine the pattern of noise complaints," said airport spokeswoman Charlene Klink. Van Nuys Airport noise officer Stephen Zetsche said the complaints, while sometimes useful in identifying problem aircraft, are not reliable enough to merit a warning letter to the jet owner.
Instead, the airport uses radar, microphones and computers to correlate excessive noise with flight plans so the offending jets can be identified and their owners warned, he said. "We do all that completely independent of whether someone complains of the noise or not," Zetsche said.
Homeowners discovered the real purpose of the hotline after reading a City Attorney's Office brief filed recently during state hearings into whether the airport deserves an exemption or variance to operate above state noise levels. .[The variance to make noise was granted without any restrictions by the state].
"The fact that a citizen complains has no bearing on whether appropriate action is taken by the airport with respect to any one of its noise programs," Deputy City Attorney Lynn Mayo wrote in a closing brief filed with the administrative law judge March 22. The complaint process "serves a public relations function," Mayo said.
Residents said they don't recall how the city explained the purpose of the hotline some 15 years ago, but they assumed their calls would be used to investigate noisy planes.
"We were under the impression that by calling the noise complaint line it would have an impact on reducing noise and limiting the number of operations at the airport," said Gerald Silver, a frequent airport critic and president of Homeowners of Encino. "Unless they change the purpose of that complaint line it's nothing but a fraud on the public," Silver said.
Silver detailed these concerns in a recent letter to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, asking her to look into the matter.
A recording on the hotline explains the curfew policy, including that the city has placed a mandatory curfew on older loud aircraft departing between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. [Landing is allowed 24/7 and many of the jets are just as loud landing and tackling off]]
In arguing on behalf of the airport, Mayo said that in the year ending June 16, 1999, there were only six complaints from residents living next to the airport in a "noise contour" in which state standards are exceeded.
Most of the individuals who complain -- 33 in January and 43 in February -- live outside that contour, and several of them make multiple complaints, Zetsche said.
Residents complain about more than curfew violations. Complaints are received throughout the day about jets and helicopters violating the airport's voluntary noise guidelines, such as the Fly Friendly program, Zetsche said.
Only if the computer system identifies a plane in violation will a pilot receive a warning, Zetsche said.
Zetsche, however, said many of the residents' complaints are investigated by his staff, which researches flight logs for information on the plane responsible for the noise. Callers later receive a letter noting the type of jet involved and that the owner will receive a warning notice -- if verified by the computer system.
Radar on top of a North Hollywood building gets the jet's assigned transponder code, information that is entered into a computer with flight data gathered each day from the Van Nuys Airport tower and noise data recorded from microphones on the ground.
A computer calculates the probability that a specific aircraft made the noise, leading to the warning. Zetsche said the system is more efficient and accurate than the time- consuming method of tracking down noisy aircraft using only people's complaints.
The notices essentially tell jet owners to "try better next time" because the airport does not have the authority to enforce anything but the curfew, Zetsche said.
On average, about 6 percent of departing flights receive notices -- 83 of the 1,233 departures in February and 62 of the 1,027 departures in January, for example. The airport's toll-free Community Response Line is: (800) 560-0010.
Updates Index
Van Nuys Airport page
San Fernando Valley homeowners