Can you keep it down?

The airport is noisy, but the city can probably only ask nicely if it wants some peace and quiet

You might wonder what a City Hall reporter does with all his time when the City Council goes on an unofficial sabbatical (it only meets once this month). 

Well, I attended a committee meeting to observe a conversation on public safety and the city’s homelessness issue, and I had plenty of time to read through a gargantuan report the city published about airport noise and what it can, and mostly can’t, do about it.

The report was requested back in September after a large group of residents from neighborhoods near the airport mobilized and demanded that City Hall do something about general aviation noise. 

I’m not talking about noise in general. “General aviation” is what the airport classifies as those small-propeller planes that flight schools and individual airplane owners use to teach young pilots how to fly, or to skip over to San Luis Obispo for lunch. 

A nationwide pilot shortage has led to a surge in people looking to log more flight hours in hopes of landing a lucrative commercial pilot license. And Southern California’s good weather, dense population and technically challenging airspace, which allows young pilots to sharpen their skills, has led to an increase in small-plane activity across the region. 

Those types of planes have been driving residents bonkers since the beginning of the year, with some of the SANER (Small Aircraft NoisE Reduction) group members saying it amounts to “a little lawnmower” hovering over their homes all day, nearly every day. 

They’ve flooded the airport’s noise complaint portal with thousands of complaints, but a complaint does not equal a violation. According to airport data, in the past six months, just .04% of general aviation flights have exceeded the noise limits set by the airport’s noise ordinance. 

What can the city do about it? 

In so many words, it’s going to ask the aircraft operators nicely to be good sky neighbors when using Long Beach Airport. 

That may not be the news that the SANER group wanted to hear, but the city’s hands are tied by a few things: Its local noise ordinance sets rules for operations at the airport and allows the city to enforce violations, but, its text has been frozen in place since 1995 when the federal government allowed it to stand with the condition that any changes to the ordinance cannot be more restrictive than what was approved in the 1990s. 

In theory, the city could try to rein in small aircraft noise through the regulatory process, but a memo from City Attorney Dawn McIntosh said that the process known as “Part 161” typically can cost millions of dollars and take upward of a decade to complete. 

“The FAA has never approved a restriction on currently operating general aviation or other aircraft under Part 161,” McIntosh wrote in the Oct. 31 memo. 

Restricting aircraft activity without the FAA’s approval could open the door for lawsuits, and eventually, the city losing the ability to govern its own airport through the local noise ordinance. 

Past City Councils have been very reluctant to touch the noise ordinance for those reasons, and I’m fairly certain this City Council will act similarly. 

Long Beach Airport is also a “federally obligated” airport, which means that it’s eligible for federal grants to do things like repave the runways and make other improvements, such as the ongoing construction on the Phase II Terminal project that is overhauling the look and functionality of the facility. 

If the airport were to fall out of federal compliance by trying to implement rules that the FAA found overly restrictive, Long Beach could have to return nearly $350 million in grant funds it has received since 2004, according to the memo. 

The city says that it is considering raising the fines for violations of the ordinance, but as I mentioned above, that would only apply to a very small number of flights in a given year. 

Instead, the airport said in the report that it will pursue voluntary agreements with aircraft operators to fly a “friendly pattern” in Long Beach. 

That could include having pilots gain altitude as quickly as possible after takeoff to avoid flying low over homes, using only the main runway after 10 p.m. and only practicing noisy “stop and go” maneuvers during specific hours.

This approach doesn’t require a lengthy and expensive federal approval process and won’t endanger the status of the city’s noise ordinance. But it will rely on voluntary compliance during the hundreds of thousands of general aviation flights the airport sees each year.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS WEEK:

Two big developments in Downtown appear to be moving forward. The Long Beach Planning Commission met Thursday to vote on the 21-story residential tower that has been proposed to replace the former Long Beach Cafe location on Ocean Boulevard. The commission also voted on the Dolly Varden Hotel project that developers want to demolish to build micro-units near the corner of Third Street and Pacific Avenue. The latter was a two-part vote because mixed into the meeting was an appeal by the developer that was asking the commission to overturn a previous ruling by the Cultural Heritage Commission that the project could move forward only if the developer kept the first 15 feet of the building that some think should have historic status. The Planning Commission overruled that decision.

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT WEEK:

Homelessness and the city’s approach to dealing with the issue have been in the news a lot recently. Business owners and residents want something to be done about crime and safety issues while the city is focused on a housing-first approach. Housing is a big part of the equation of how cities across the state are going to get more people off the streets, but this week I confirmed what I had heard for some time: the city’s homeless housing projects are delayed and likely won’t open until sometime next year. To be sure, these 120 or so units were not going to be the silver bullet considering the city has about a 2,000 bed deficit when compared to the 3,447 unhoused people counted last year. But the projects represent an opportunity to get 120+ people off the streets. That will now be pushed to 2024.