LETTER Airport Issues Explained The article (“VICA Panel Votes Down Airport Plan,” April 14) addressed the April proceedings of the VICA Transportation Committee regarding the discussion of a new master plan alternative for Van Nuys Airport. Two crucially important issues were not mentioned in that article. First, Van Nuys Airport presently exists under a plan, and that plan designates the entire airport for aviation purposes. Second, both L.A. City Planning and Los Angeles World Airports have opined that land requirements, necessary for the support of aviation demand at the end of the planning window, very closely approximate the land allocations for aviation as are embodied in the present plan. Very much to the point, the L.A. City Planning Department sent a memorandum to the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council noting that some 243 out of 274 acres were needed for aircraft parking. Omitted from that document was any reflection on land required by aviation businesses such as completion centers, avionics shops and interiors shops not engaged in the basing of aircraft. It also ignored the carve-out of some 15 acres for a new General Services helicopter facility in the middle of prime aviation land. Additionally, it ignored the loss of just over three acres under FAA set-back requirements that LAWA recently noticed for enforcement, and finally it was mute about the decision to release 2.2 acres of critically needed aviation land at the corner of Hart Street and Hayvenhurst to commercial purposes (an ideal location for expansion of an adjacent piston aircraft facility.) The proposed new alternative ignores the business forces that will move investors to develop land at Van Nuys Airport by artificially circumscribing land use. That action is specifically intended to constrain supply and prevent the basing of new and quiet turbine aircraft at the Airport. The parties negatively impacted by that kind of planning aren’t just important Valley businesses at the airport, but it goes far beyond that. The aircraft supported by Van Nuys Airport are the commercial arteries of Valley businesses and beyond. VICA has never taken a position with respect to which types of aircraft should occupy which land, and it is my personal belief that it should not do so now by endorsing the proposed alternative. There is clearly a need to assure parking for the over 500 piston aircraft now based at the airport, but the method used to gain that assurance from the city should not be the politicization of turbine aircraft and the sacrifice of their contribution to the economic vitality of the Valley. The limited business support enjoyed by the new proposal is a product of the development moratorium imposed on the airport by the city council, and that is only because the proposed alternative gives the false hope for businesses that they will finally be able to activate plans for developing properties at the airport. But the truth of the matter is that there will be very limited development at the airport if the proposed plan is adopted. A close examination of the proposal reveals that after the helicopter and piston lands are set aside, there is virtually no undeveloped land remaining for aviation purposes at Van Nuys Airport. Robert L. Rodine Principal Consultant, The Polaris Group and Co-Chair VICA Transportation Committee