Airport Sues to Void Council’s Move Against Taxiway Work

Burbank Airport officials went to court Friday in a dispute over whether the Los Angeles City Council can use its zoning power to halt the lengthening of a taxiway on a section of the airport that extends into Los Angeles.

In a suit filed in U.S. District Court, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority asked the court to block enforcement of ordinances passed June 12 by the council that requires the airport to submit any construction plans to the city for environmental review.

The authority contends that the ordinances are illegal because the Federal Aviation Administration, which is financing the taxiway construction, has legal jurisdiction over airport matters.

Airport spokesman Victor J. Gill called the ordinances a “capricious use of land use law to control the movement of aircraft.”

The suit said the ordinances “violate the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. . . . The ordinances are also challenged under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the 14th Amendment and as violative of state laws.”

The zoning ordinances are the latest in a string of efforts by the Los Angeles council to find a way to pressure the airport to reduce jet noise.

The council saw its opportunity when the airport authority announced last year that it planned to extend a taxiway on the west side of the north-south runway by 2,000 feet to the north, across the Burbank border into the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles.

All of the construction would be on airport-owned land within Los Angeles. Grading is scheduled to begin next month.

Although more than one-third of a mile of the airport’s north-south runway is in Sun Valley, the city has been foiled in previous efforts to use that to claim jurisdiction over the airport.

Los Angeles officials say the ordinances might give the city leverage over airport expansion plans, particularly a plan to build a $250-million passenger terminal.

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who introduced the ordinances that ultimately were approved 13 to 0, said, “It’ll be effective if they need this property for their expansion project.”

Airport officials say the longer taxiway is needed to increase safety.

Because the west-side taxiway does not extend to the northern end of the runway, planes on the west side of the north-south runway now must cross the runway--across the path of planes taking off and landing--to reach a full-length taxiway on the east side of the runway.