The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved, 4-1, a lease for United Airlines to return to McClellan-Palomar Airport.
But there were some questions about the legality of the deal.
“Currently, as we stand, we don’t need an amendment to Carlsbad City (conditional use permit)?" Supervisor Paloma Aguirre asked the county's director of airport operations, Jamie Abbott.
"That is correct,” he said.
The city of Carlsbad has insisted that Palomar is a general aviation airport and that opening it up to commercial flights constitutes an expansion.
“The city has consistently asserted its role in jurisdiction in making final land use decisions for new or expanded airport land uses, which requires the county to obtain an amendment to the airport’s conditional use permit,” said Jason Haber, Carlsbad intergovernmental affairs director.
In a statement to KPBS, county spokesperson Donna Durckel said an amendment was not necessary to "approve the United Airlines or any similar commercial service lease."
"Commercial service airlines are using the airport facilities as-is and are not seeking changes to the facilities for their operations," she said.
Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer was the only supervisor to vote against the deal. Carlsbad and the airport are within her district. She’s concerned about the noise complaints from neighbors, especially since American Airlines returned to the airport earlier this year.
“I'm not able to support this today," Lawson-Remer said. "I think the community has made it really clear they're frustrated with American. And we did our best to have a pilot, and then we just kind of get hit with this again before we made any progress on the community's noise concerns.”
American was the first commercial airline to fly out of Palomar in a decade. Resident Dom Betro said since the airline's return in February, jet traffic has increased by 10-fold between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. The first daily American flight out of Palomar departs at 6:15 a.m.
Betro is with Palomar Airport Action Network, a group opposed to commercial flights. He lives under the flight path, and he says the noise has been unbearable.
“When I’m sitting in front of my TV and I can’t hear the TV because that American Airlines flight is at 85 decibels," he said.
Betro said the Embraer 175 aircraft American uses regularly exceed 85 decibels, well above the 60 decibels allowed under the law. United said it will also use the Embraer 175 at Palomar.
Abbott said in the county's study, commercial jets' noise levels are within the legal limits. Betro questions the county's methodology.
"What the county was explaining is the way they measure noise is not in terms of what it sounds like when it's coming over your house, but over space and time," Betro said. "So by the time they average it out, it sounds like it's not a big impact."
Citizens for a Friendly Airport (C4FA) has threatened to file a lawsuit over the United approval. Earlier this year, the group filed a suit challenging the county's approval of American Airlines' lease. The suit claims the county failed to assess the environmental impacts of commercial flights returning under the California Environmental Quality Act. The city of Carlsbad recently joined that lawsuit.
Vickey Syage, president of C4FA, said Wednesday's decision was disappointing but not unexpected.
“It just seems that the county wants to play word salad — mixed messages, avoid the issue that they don't have the right to allow big, huge airplanes to fly in and out of Palomar,” she said.
Durckel said large aircraft can and have used the airport regularly since it opened.
In the meantime, United has been preselling flights out of Palomar. The first flight is expected to take off March 30.
