Northern Hills Homeowner's Association

'No growth, no way, no how'

Nov 17, 2000

The Providence Journal
November 17, 2000

Stop Green expansion, residents say Growth is inevitable, and planning for it is the best strategy, airport officials say.

WARWICK -- T.F. Green Airport has enjoyed four years of hosannas from travelers across southern New England, but last night it was time to hear from the people who live with the noise, pollution and safety concerns that are the downside of a busy and still-growing airport.

About 300 Warwick and Cranston residents came to Veterans Memorial High School to demand that Green's next 20-year master plan include a cap on the number of flights and a ban on runway extensions and the construction of new gates.

Airport Corporation officials said every issue is on the table in the planning process, but that continued growth is certain and the question is how to prepare for it.

If the corporation were to stop planning for growth, Executive Director Elaine Roberts said last night, it would end up trying to react to growth after it had ruined many of the conveniences that travelers like about Green.

But airport neighbors were not about to buy that argument.

Kate Stark, a Warwick Neck resident, urged the corporation to stop the growth and be content to operate "a successful, medium-sized airport that lives comfortably within its host city."

And the Rev. Duane Clinker, pastor of Hillsgrove United Methodist Church, spoke for hundreds when he said there is just one conclusion that the planners can arrive at 18 months from now that will build any "trust" between the Airport Corporation and its neighbors:

"It has to be no growth, no way, no how."

THE OPENING of the new terminal and the arrival of Southwest Airlines more than doubled airport traffic at Green over the last four years. But Herb Cummings, chairman of the Airport Corporation's board of directors, said last night that the days of double-digit growth seem over for now.

With Southwest Airlines now flying out of Hartford, Conn., and Manchester, N.H., residents of those states have less reason to come to Green for low fares, Cummings said.

Everywhere in Warwick, however, there are signs that the airport and airport-related growth are not about to settle down.

Green is straining against its natural boundaries: Post Road on the west, Main Avenue to the south, the Cedar Swamp neighborhood on the east, and Airport Road to the north.

The city, though it opposes uncontrolled airport growth, is busy promoting development in the Warwick Station District, a 70-acre tract situated
between the air terminal and the nearby Amtrak line. The state Department of Transportation plans to build a train station there, introducing service by both high-speed intercity rail and Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority commuter trains, to make it easier for regional customers of Green to get to Warwick without driving.

Large chunks of neighborhoods, and the remnants of neighborhoods already vanished, are being purchased by developers or are looking for corporate suitors to buy them out en masse.

The Airport Corporation is spending millions annually to soundproof houses , buy out houses, and now to buy out houses that have already been soundproofed, but none of it is happening fast enough to satisfy people who have decided to stop fighting the airport and simply get out of its way.

Those who are staying announced last night that they had formed a consortium of residents from 18 neighborhoods in Warwick and Cranston, adopting the name "Concerned Airport Neighborhoods." They said they would work for a cap on airport growth as a matter of state policy, attempting to dethrone the market demand for air travel as the driving force behind growth at Green.

Green has attracted new critics during its recent rebirth because while jet engines are getting quieter on average, the sheer volume of traffic is
rattling windows well beyond Hoxsie, Spring Green, Gaspee Plateau and Pawtuxet Village.

Now complaints never before heard are coming in from Cranston neighborhoods such as Edgewood, Garden City and Garden Hills.

The corporation has acknowledged the growing problem of jet noise in Cranston by giving the city two seats on its Community Noise Advisory
Committee. But that and other gestures of listening to the public are suspect in the minds of many airport critics.

Pastor Clinker last night touched on that theme when he asked the aviation officials why public comment was always the last step on their planning
protocol.

He suggested it should be first.

"It's that whole 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first' thing," he said, to cheers from the audience. "To me, as a pastor dealing with folks all around the airport, trust has been radically ruptured and broken."

THE WRITING of a master plan got off to a controversial start in recent months when the public learned that Landrum and Brown, the airport
consultants from Ohio hired to write the $1 million plan, was holding private meetings with constituencies that are interested in seeing Green
grow -- the operators of congested Logan International Airport in Boston, the Federal Aviation Administration and state and regional business interests.

The company met publicly on Oct. 12 with Mayor Scott Avedisian and the city's delegation to the State House, asking them for direction on the
master plan study, but insisted that the public would not be allowed to speak until late next year, when the plan is in draft form.

By that time, airport neighbors complained, the momentum toward more growth will be so strong that ordinary people will have little chance of stopping it, and their neighborhoods will be considered expendable in the name of a greater economic good.

Because of that outcry, the Airport Corporation arranged for last night's meeting, which was recorded by a stenographer and made a part of the master plan record. It has scheduled a second meeting for 6 p.m. Monday at Pilgrim High School, Pilgrim Parkway, Warwick.

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Is this where San Antonio is headed?
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