When to Fly the Friendly Skies, or Not

Four laws designed to cut down the din from aircraft using the East Hampton Airport will be the subject of a hearing next Thursday and could take effect before the start of the busy season.

The proposed legislation would impose a year-round curfew, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., on all flights to and from the airport. Takeoffs and landings by aircraft deemed “noisy” — primarily helicopters and jets that fall into a noise-rating category used by the Federal Aviation Administration and internationally — would be prohibited between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. all year long.

Two additional laws would apply only in season, defined as May through September. One would ban helicopters from the airport on weekends (from noon Thursday to noon on Monday) and on holidays. The other would limit aircraft in the “noisy” category to two airport uses, one takeoff and one landing (i.e., a round trip) — per week.

Discussion of the ramifications of the laws took off before the proposal even left the runway. Concerns have been raised about the economic impact on the airport, aviation businesses, and the entire town, and about the potential for increased air traffic at the privately owned Montauk Airport.

Those afflicted by aircraft noise — residents of both the North and South Forks as well as their elected officials — have voiced support for the restrictions, but have taken issue with a revision to the original law, which was changed to exclude turboprop seaplanes from the definition of “noisy” aircraft. That would exclude them from the extended curfew and one-round-trip per-week-in-summer rules.

The change was recommended by the town’s aviation attorneys and consultants, who have worked with the town board to craft laws that would be acceptable to the F.A.A. and survive legal challenges.  

In a memo to Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the board’s airport liaison, the consultants said that the use of several noise measurement metrics was called for in the original legislation in order to include “a fair number of propeller-driven aircraft,” such as seaplanes, in the “noisy” category. However, they wrote, because the various metrics measure different things and are not comparable, it could happen that an aircraft with one type of noise rating falls intothe noisy category while another plane that is actually noisier than the first, could be exempted, based on another type of noise rating.

“And this,” they wrote, “— a restriction that denies the use of an airport to some aircraft based on noise but permits other, noisier aircraft — is the precise scenario that courts have found to be unreasonable.”

The consultants recommended relying on one measurement standard only, of “effective perceived noise level decibels,” which, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, “is consistent and does not create unreasonable or arbitrary distinctions.”

By that standard, however, many seaplanes would not be deemed “noisy.”

In a release last week, the Quiet Skies Coalition of East Hampton said the change was a “mistake.” The group predicted “an explosion of seaplane traffic” in response to the weekend and nighttime helicopter ban.

  “It is critically important that the aircraft noise control program succeed this season,” wrote Kathleen Cunningham, the group’s chairwoman. “The work of this town board has been exemplary. But the eyes of the entire East End are upon us as we move toward returning the peaceful enjoyment of home and property to residents and wildlife alike. Meaningful aircraft noise relief must be delivered to retain the confidence and trust of the noise-affected public.”  Charles Ehren, a Quiet Skies co-chair, called it “imperative” that the board amend the laws “to end the seaplane loophole.”

“If seaplanes are a problem, we will see it this summer,” Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said Tuesday. She said the town board would gauge the effect of legislation at that time, and seek public comment “to determine the success and/or failure of the use restrictions and whether they function the way they were intended or need to be adjusted.”

As currently proposed, the four laws together would restrict 75 percent of helicopter operations and 24 percent of all aircraft operations, said the councilwoman. The restrictions have the potential to reduce helicopter noise complaints by 87 percent, she said, and overall noise complaints by 67 percent annually.

In the summer, when the tightest restrictions would be in place, 88 percent of normal helicopter operations would be restricted, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, with the potential to reduce complaints by 92 percent.

The question of where helicopters and other aircraft barred from landing in East Hampton would go is to be addressed by the town board at a work session on Tuesday. In a recent letter to the board, Concerned Citizens of Montauk expressed the worries of hamlet residents that they will inherit the noise problem the board is seeking to squelch, through increased use of the Montauk Airport. Because federal airport grants were accepted for projects there, F.A.A. “grant assurances,” agreements regarding airport use and operation, are in effect, meaning that the airport’s owner could not independently enact usage restrictions even should he so desire. Ownership of the airport is on record in the corporate name of Montauk Airstrip Inc., c/o a Montauk Post Office box that belongs to Perry (Chip) Duryea 3rd. Mr. Duryea did not return a call for comment.

East Hampton Town, which has also been tied to grant assurances, was recently released from several that expired at the beginning of this year, enabling the town to pursue the new restrictions.

Ms. Burke-Gonzalez does not believe that the new East Hampton Airport rules would result in a flood of traffic to Montauk. She cited that facility’s location and limited facilities, as well as weather.

Also at the board’s meeting on Tuesday, Arthur Malman, the chairman of the town’s budget and finance advisory committee, is scheduled to present that group’s analysis of the regulations’ financial impacts. In December, the committee told town board members that the airport can be financially self-sustaining even with reduced income from landing fees, and outlined other ways for it to make money.

The cost of litigation, however, “could be substantial,” the advisory committee warned. An aviation group calling itself Friends of the East Hampton Airport has already filed suit against the town, alleging lack of airport maintenance, and against the F.A.A., over the expiration of the grant assurances.

The airport fund has $1.7 million currently in reserve, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said.

Critics of the proposed regulations and of the town’s refusal to accept new F.A.A. grants to pay for airport upkeep (thus avoiding entering into new grant assurances), have accused town officials of deliberately starving the airport of funds in order to ensure its future closure. 

Loren Riegelhaupt, on behalf of Friends of the East Hampton Airport, stated earlier this month that “the board wants to blindly push ahead with their ill-advised plan to effectively close the airport, regardless of its impacts to the town’s economic well-being.”

In another release, the group said that the regulations, “if enacted, will not only put hardworking pilots out of work, they will also have a dramatic and harmful impact on all of the local small businesses that rely on a strong real estate market and summer visitors.”

Owners of airport-based businesses have said curtailing helicopter and other flights would spell their economic death.

This week, Laraine Creegan, the head of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, circulated an East Hampton Business Alliance newsletter detailing the proposed airport regulations. She urged the hamlet’s business owners to attend next week’s hearing.

“There will be potential/negative economic issues because of this plan,” she wrote. “We may not see the impact immediately; it will probably happen in a year or two. We can see possibly in the future houses going on the market and prices going down overall.”

But in a detailed Feb. 7 memo to the town board, the airport planning committee’s subcommittee on noise wrote that there was “no material economic obstacle to airport access regulation.” In its 15-page report, the committee concluded that given East Hampton’s location and the details of its economy, the actual economic impact of the airport, its passengers, and its businesses, was limited.

“The airport is not the necessary cause of any trip to East Hampton or the East End,” the committee wrote. “While claims have been made that, without the airport, owners of expensive homes would not come to East Hampton, this is not merely implausible but risible. If the airport vanished into thin air, homes on the beach would not turn into a ghost town with their shutters flapping in the wind. If there were no airport, virtually everyone who comes to East Hampton by air would arrive by other means.”

“If there are indeed any residents who would not come to or live in East Hampton without direct air access (bearing in mind that there is air access at Gabreski Airport 26 miles distant or Southampton Heliport 15 miles distant), they would sell their homes and be replaced by others, with absolutely no net impact on the economy of East Hampton,” the memo continued.

Reports on the airport noise analysis process followed by the board and consultants can be found at the town website, town.east-hampton.ny.us, and at htoplanning.com. Comments may be sent to town officials at [email protected].

Next Thursday’s hearing will begin at 4:30 p.m., at the LTV studios in Wainscott.