Northern Hills Homeowner's Association

Northern Hills will NOT Qualify for this method

Noise project offering relief

By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

Joan Gentry recently had to dig out her alarm clock because she no longer can rely on the raspy thunder of jet engines to rattle her awake before sunrise every day.

Not that she minds.

The ring from her clock follows a full night of rest, something she hadn't gotten in years as noise from San Antonio International Airport steadily increased from more traffic.

Thanks to soundproofing of her home last week, Gentry has transformed from a self-described grump who often complained about airport noise to someone who has a lease on serenity and a little more zest.

"Wow, it's nice," she said after her first two days and nights of peace.

Gentry's home, in the MacArthur Park neighborhood east of the airport, became the first house in San Antonio to be soundproofed using federal money, said Jerry Rankin, the city's airport noise abatement officer.

Gentry's house and four others around the airport were soundproofed last week as part of a $119,000 pilot program. The other homes are in the neighborhoods of Oak Park-Northwood, Wilshire Terrace, Stoneridge and Vista del Norte.

Workers this week will blast the five homes with loudspeakers and measure the sounds inside to see if they are quieter than what's considered a normal conversation.

As far as Gentry's concerned, the soundproofing already passed the most important test. When one of the dozens of jets that fly daily over her area gets within earshot, she's now able to keep talking to family and friends, hear the television or sleep in peace.

"If they say it failed, I'd say, 'I don't care. Go away and leave me alone,'" she said.

As Gentry and Rankin talked one morning last week, the muffled rumble of a jet engine became audible. They calmly continued talking as the sound gently faded.

"That's one of the louder ones," Rankin said over the dull noise.

Gentry carefully cocked her ear toward the patio door and smiled.

"That tone. It's just so much different," she said.

If the pilot program, funded entirely by the Federal Aviation Administration, is deemed successful, then more federal funds will be sought to soundproof more homes, Rankin said.

About 5,000 houses are in eligible areas. But soundproofing would be done in phases, possibly starting with 980 houses, and the process would take years.

Also, unlike the pilot program, the city or homeowners would have to pay 20 percent of the $20,000 to $25,000 cost per house. It could be a combination of city and private money.

Some controversy swirls around the program.

The five homeowners signed agreements not to enter into any lawsuits against the city over airport noise. The agreements are part of the deed restrictions of the homes, so if the properties are sold the pacts apply to the new owners. Such agreements might be required for other homes to be soundproofed.

"We'd like them to sign," Rankin said.

Philip Salemi, a vice chairman of the airport's Noise Abatement Advisory Committee, said residents should not have to sign away their rights to address noise that has increased over the years. Soundproofing helps, he said, but residents still must endure the noise outside the buildings.

"Deed restrictions of this nature will affect a neighborhood like cancer," said Salemi, who lives near the airport. "It is a black eye to surrounding houses that are significantly stigmatized by even one homeowner in a community having signed this infringement."

In recent decades, airport noise has gotten worse because of increased flights and more powerful, louder engines, Rankin said. Older engines now are being retrofitted and phased out under federal guidelines to decrease noise.

Salemi questions whether the FAA requires agreements not to sue — called avigation easements — in exchange for federal funds for soundproofing.

The agency doesn't require them but it recommends them, said Nan Terry, an environmental specialist with the FAA regional office in Fort Worth. The easements inform potential home buyers and protect the airport from litigation, she said in a recent letter to airport officials here.

"The FAA strongly encourages the use of avigation easements," the letter states.

City Councilmen David Carpenter and Tim Bannwolf, who represent the residents living closest to the airport, consider the easements important because of federal guidelines.

"Which to me is not an unreasonable position," Bannwolf said.

But Carpenter's not so sure.

"I'm not necessarily sold on it," he said.

Meanwhile, Gentry isn't that concerned about how loud jets sound in her yard, and she never planned to sue the city. She's just glad to get some relief and now looks forward to keeping her home for a long time.

"They called and said let's work together. Why not?" she said. "I just laughed."

It took workers less than two days to replace her home's 16 windows with triple-paned windows — a combination of double-paned vinyl frames with single-pane storm windows — and install storm doors. Some of the five homes in the pilot program had insulation blown into attics.

Using federal money to soundproof buildings from airport noise is not new in San Antonio.

Since the early 1990s, as much as $4 million in federal money was spent to treat 12 schools, 19 churches, two nursing homes and one library.



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pdriscoll@express-news.net

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