Northern Hills Homeowner's Association

Norhthern Hills loses round

Nov 19, 2001

Northern Hills loses round in overflight battle

Proposed airport takeoff plan opponents say proposal is unsafe, but proponents claim it is unfair to make them bear noise burden.

By James Coburn
Managing Editor
Northside Recorder

A controversial plan to reduce airport noise by shifting the preferred takeoff corridor from the southeast to the northeast is pitting some Northside neighborhoods against each other.
In the meantime, the City Council voted Oct. 25 to send the proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration for review.
The recommendation by city staff and a consultant that jets make a zigzag turn after takeoff from San Antonio International Airport prompted an emotional and angry debate during the council meeting.
Leaders of Northern Hills, which would be overflown by a majority of the jets, called the plan ''unsafe'' and ''unfair.''
But a representative for long-suffering Oak Park and Northwood residents, who have lived for years with the noise of jets taking off into the prevailing southeast wind, leveled a barrage of charges against opponents of
the plan.
Phil Salemi, president of the Oak Park-Northwood Neighborhood Association,
said the proposal should be supported because it ''benefits the greater
number of San Antonians.'' Oak Park-Northwood is located just north of Alamo Heights.
District 9 Councilman Carroll Schubert ended the war of words, receiving a unanimous vote to move the long-delayed noise plan forward after being
assured by Aviation Director Kevin Dolliole that the council would have final say-so on the plan even if it wins FAA approval.
''Right now what we have is not a dime to do any noise mitigation anywhere in San Antonio, and as we heard today, we've got people that are pretty mad at each other about the way things are,'' Schubert said. ''I wish we could solve the problem for everybody, but we can't.''
He added: ''So, what I'm going to do, as a council person who has neighborhoods who feel both ways, I'm going to be voting in favor of moving
this plan forward to the FAA so we can get something out there and get some information back, and this city in this century will have a noise mitigation
plan at the airport.''
John Williams, representing noise study consultant Ricondo & Associates,
said the FAA would probably respond to the plan by the middle of next year. He said if the finding is favorable, it would be another two years before the plan could be implemented.
Dolliole, responding to a question from District 10 Councilman David Carpenter, said if the FAA rejects the zigzag turn, the proposal to make the northeast runway preferential for takeoffs should be dropped.
''Without the turn, the preferential runway use program does push a lot more
noise to the neighborhood due north of the airport (Stoneridge),'' he said.
The plan currently calls for the northeast runway to be lengthened 1,500 feet. When that is completed, it would become the preferential runway.
Departing planes, to the extent the FAA deems proper, would make a 15-degree right turn, followed by a 15-degree left turn after crossing Wetmore Road.
Planes then would be flying over Capitol Cement and mostly undeveloped land
until crossing Thousand Oaks Drive and overflying Northern Hills. During the council hearing, opponents of the plan were blasted as being
''anti-community'' by Salemi and as having tried to deceive the public.
''You and I both know the FAA would never allow the implementation of a plan that would in any way be considered even remotely unsafe,'' Salemi said. ''But thanks to the self-proclaimed experts of Northern Hills, they are more qualified to make that decision.''
He also charged that Les Hobgood, the city's airport noise mitigation officer for 10 years until he retired in 1999, is a resident of Northern Hills and ''stifled'' Oak Park-Northwood's efforts to seek relief from airport noise.

''We're opposed to the turn not only because of the unfair burden of moving
noise from one neighborhood to another, but also and most importantly because it is unsafe,'' Michael Gallagher told the council. Gallagher is
president of the Northern Hills Homeowners Association, which chartered a bus for 30 residents to attend the meeting in a show of opposition.

Gallagher, noting he is a former Air Force air traffic controller, said controllers at the airport ''have warned us that the 15-degree turn mixes fast and slow aircraft into that same narrow corridor.''

He said when consultants learned of these objections, they came up with an alternative plan that shows 50 percent of the departing planes making the zigzag turn and the other 50 percent going out straight.
''When we showed this to the tower operators, they said this is even more dangerous,'' he said, because planes on parallel headings could cross flight paths when turning toward their destinations.

Gallagher said they were also told the plan sends aircraft into the Randolph Air Force Base flight pattern.
He said the council could eliminate most objections to the proposed plan by deleting the 15-degree turn.
Also objecting to the plan was Kimberly Bush, president of the Shearer Hills Ridgeview Neighborhood Association. In a letter to Schubert, with copies to the mayor, council members and aviation director, Bush and the group's vice president said the study ''recommends increasing arrival traffic over our neighborhood by 80 percent'' by increasing overall arrivals on the northeast runway from 10.5 percent to 18.5 percent.

''The study reads that this change will actually reduce noise in our neighborhood,'' the letter states. ''That flies in the face of reality. ... By choosing to only consider noise from areas with noise higher than ours, this study has chosen to use our neighborhood as a dumping ground for noise.''
A Capitol Cement executive, Max Frailey, also opposed the zigzag turn.

''Our concern stems from increased probability of risk to our employees and property,'' he said.
Hobgood, who spoke prior to Salemi, told the council he located in Northern Hills because it isn't in the flight path. He said changing the preferred takeoff corridor ''is moving noise from one area to another, and that's not what you want to do.''
Hobgood said a map in the Ricondo & Associates study shows one area of Northern Hills as being vacant when it actually has 184 residential units with 460 people. He said a study table should indicate that under the plan,
noise would be increased for 1,140 people northeast of the airport while it would be reduced for 3,040 people southeast of the airport.