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http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/s...13565943c.html

9 sites mulled to replace Linbergh Field

By M.S. Enkoji -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, April 12, 2005

SAN DIEGO - Passenger-laden jets seem to disappear into the concrete
canyons of downtown before gliding into the nation's largest
single-runway commercial airport.

Interstate 5, homes, high-rise offices, a military base, every kind of
modern development imaginable hems in San Diego International Airport.

Something's gotta give.

"I don't know when they're going to move it," said Bernard Crews, a
reluctant neighbor to the 75-year-old airport.

The airport, fondly called Lindbergh Field because Charles Lindbergh
began his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight here, is expected to
reach the bursting point within 10 to 17 years. There is nowhere to
grow on the banks of San Diego Harbor.

San Diego's search for a new airport will be long, possibly
contentious say some, a cautionary tale perhaps for other big towns
who don't want the headache, the price tag and the turmoil.

"People don't do this lightly," said Richard Marchi, senior vice
president of technical and environmental affairs for the Airports
Council International, an industry association.

But for some people like Crews, who lives on a hillside studded with
homes rising above the airport's runway, it can't be soon enough.

Beginning his walk to work recently, Crews, 57, shouted above a
Southwest jet sweeping in for a landing. The rumbling is nonstop, he
said.

In this neighborhood, people enjoy San Diego's seaside luster from
behind closed windows year-round, Crews said.

Talk about moving the airport, both earnest and wistful, has gone on
for at least 50 years, said Angela Shaffer-Payne, vice president of
strategic planning for the San Diego County Regional Airport
Authority.

"We hope this is the final study," she said.

Voters will weigh in on a new location in 2006, but the authority is
charged with preparing a shortlist of options for the ballot.

Not an easy task.

At one point, one idea was to build a floating island offshore,
connected to San Diego by a highway. Another location wasn't even in
this country. A Tijuana option and the floating island are no longer
on the table.

By using computer modeling to select logical alternatives, the
authority has honed down 32 possible sites to nine, some of which are
90 miles away from downtown San Diego - and some of which are military
bases.

Of the five military locations, three are within 15 miles of downtown,
which means the Pentagon owns what appear to be the most attractive
spots.

The two locations at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and a third at
North Island Naval Air Station are about the same distance from San
Diego's center as Sacramento's airport is from its downtown. The two
other military sites, Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base and March Air
Reserve Base in Riverside County, are farther out.

Even though the nearest private property on the list is an hour from
downtown San Diego, the airport authority is refraining from even
evaluating military sites until May 17. On May 16, the Pentagon is
expected to issue a recommended list of at least a quarter of the
bases nationwide to close.

Even though the authority already has a meeting scheduled for May 17,
Shaffer-Payne demurred on the importance of the base sites and
insisted that authority members are not crossing their fingers for a
local closure.

"We recognize, as an economic engine ourselves, that the military
plays a significant role in San Diego," she said.

Marchi, of the Airports Council International, summed up the political
dilemma: "You've got a congressman trying to protect the economy, and
you don't want the discussion on the table."

It's a political hot potato, said Leon Panetta, the co-chair of a
state panel appointed to assess California's military property and
advise communities on how to keep their bases open.

"What you're basically telling people who live on that base is, would
you like a job building an airport?" said Panetta.

The military maintains that decisions about closing a location is
based on its value to the military.

But as President Clinton's chief of staff, Panetta said he knows the
inevitability of politics.

"Those things find their way in," he said. "How much impact it can
have varies. It's a real toss of the dice."

A proposal for a second life as an airport shouldn't influence
military discussions, he said. But he added, "We'd be naive not to
think any time there's a conflict that it doesn't get back there. It's
not a state secret."

Shaffer-Payne insists that far-flung sites will one day be close in
and there is no secret longing to push out the Navy or Marines.

But Marchi said the industry standard for airports is about 15 to 20
miles from a city core.

"Obviously they need to be concerned about a site 90 miles from
downtown," he said.

Research has shown the public will bypass close, popular airports for
more remote ones if the ticket price is right, Marchi said.

The last major commercial airport to open was Denver International
Airport in 1995 at a cost of $5 billion, Marchi said. As with most
airports, carriers, user fees and concession contracts have footed the
bill instead of local taxpayers.

But with an inadequate airport, "it will really be hard to plan for a
vibrant future," he said.

With the price of land and the relentless march of development,
preserving an airport is paramount for any metropolitan region, Marchi
said.

"One of the things that has worked well is buy enough land," he said.

The Denver airport sits on 53 square miles. The San Diego airport is
squeezed onto 614 acres - barely more than a square mile.

In Sacramento, airport managers are looking beyond the future as the
city's fringe creeps closer.

Instead of relying on traditional 20-year forecasts of how the airport
will grow, managers are limiting development based on a full-blown
build-out of Sacramento International Airport, said Monica Newhouse,
noise program manager for Sacramento County Airport System.

By expanding the perimeters as widely as possible, the process for
notifying home buyers heightens so there is no misunderstanding every
time the home changes hands about what they are buying and the
potential for jets flying overhead someday.

Moving the airport, now on 5,500 acres, would be as tough as if it
were also on the beach, Newhouse said.

"Where do you go?" she said. Not to the west, where airspace would
tangle with Travis Air Force Base. Not into the foothills, which
aren't level enough.

Going north, toward flat farmland, would be the only option, but it
would probably have to be beyond Woodland, she said.

"We'd be looking at a similar situation as San Diego," she said, "you
know, 60 or 90 miles out."

About the writer:

* The Bee's M.S. Enkoji can be reached at (916) 321-1106 or
menkoji at sacbee.com.

BL.
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