|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Facing resistance from local environmentalists, elected leaders and neighboring cities, Palo Alto has paused a contentious plan to upgrade and potentially expand the runway at the municipal airport in the Baylands.
Now, however, it’s the pilots who are crying foul.
The future of Palo Alto Airport became a topic of widespread community concern last year when the city unveiled a set of alternatives for expanding its lone runway, a move that airport officials and consultants argued is required to meet federal guidelines. During heated public meetings, residents from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park raised concerns about the environmental impacts of increasing the footprint of the airport, which is located in the Baylands, as well as the noise and pollution impacts that would be borne by communities around the facility.
But the course reversal also caught city leaders – and airport advocates — by surprise. As the City Council narrowed down this month its list of objectives for the year, the long-term plan for the airport was conspicuously omitted from the list. Even though city staff offered some public assurances last week that they will continue their efforts to reduce noise and encourage use of unleaded fuel, the broader planning effort has been delayed until at least next year.
Not everyone is thrilled. Bob Lennox, a pilot who was involved in Palo Alto’s effort in 2014 to take over airport operations from Santa Clara County, called this delay “a big mistake.”
“This delays a long overdue planning process without which we cannot reach our sustainability goals, which include the microgrid, preparation for electric aircraft and other aircraft improvements that are required,” Lennox told the council during a March 10 hearing.
The airport, he said, is a “gateway to our city.”
“It should be a world-class example that others can point to,” Lennox said.
The city launched the Long-Range Facilities & Sustainability Plan in 2023 to comply with requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration, which provides the lion’s share of funding for airport improvements. The plan presented five alternatives for the airport’s 2,443-foot runway, four of which would expand it so that it either meets or gets closer to meeting the FAA standard of 3,500 feet.
These alternatives triggered intense opposition, with more than 350 people signing a petition last fall urging the city to prioritize Baylands preservation over any airport expansion. At the same time, residents in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park criticized the proposed runway expansion at community meetings, highlighting the noise and pollution impacts that increased flights would have on their communities.
Opposition for the airport and its expansion continued this month, when a group of Stanford University students presented research to East Palo Alto residents regarding environmental effects and possible avenues to closure like nearby Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose, which is set to close in 2031.
The residents expressed high concern for lead poisoning, noise pollution, potential plane crashes and other negative environmental effects, as planes often fly directly over local schools and youth-dedicated spaces, like nonprofit EPA Center.
“How is East Palo Alto supposed to grow in a contaminated area?” Nadine Rambeau, executive director of EPA Center, asked at a March 5 community meeting, alluding to the city’s plans to build a library, housing and offices in a zone frequented by local planes.
The Palo Alto City Council also expressed reservations about environmental impacts last September, when it effectively rejected any runway expansion but directed airport staff to move ahead with other planned improvements, including efforts to reduce noise and plan for a microgrid.
Even so, some pilots were caught off guard this month by the council’s decision to leave the long-range plan off its 2025 workplan entirely. Tom Myers, board chair at the West Valley Flying Club, argued that the airport users who are eager to see improvements are “handcuffed” by this decision.
According to the city, the airport received 256 noise complaints from 23 households in 2023 and 383 complaints from 33 households in 2022. Myers, however, rejected the notion that airport staff is too burdened by noise complaints and the airport’s pending switch to unleaded fuel.
“Our detractors are making more noise than our airplanes,” Myers said at the March 10 hearing.
Public Works Director Brad Eggleston assured the council and the public that even with the plan’s delay, the city is still looking at ways to improve the airport. Airport staff will be working with the city’s Utilities Advisory Commission in the coming months to explore options for solar facilities and a microgrid at the airport, he said.
The city’s workplan for 2025 also includes implementing a plan for a phase out of leaded fuel at the airport. With unleaded fuel now available, the city is looking to conduct “lead monitoring, encourage and track use of the fuel, explore potentially subsidizing the cost of unleaded fuel, and develop updated lease requirements to promote unleaded fuel,” according to the list of objectives that the council informally endorsed over two meetings this month.
But Council member Pat Burt said he was surprised to see the airport plan left off the list entirely. While he acknowledged that the process went “sideways” because of the runway debate, Burt argued that the plan has many other critical components that should be pursued.
“Whether required or not, I think we should go forward with the focus areas that are important to us,” Burt said. “Anything that improves safety, including the tower and a focus on this whole microgrid where we have the potential to transform the airport and to increase revenue.”
Eggleston acknowledged during the March 10 discussion that city staff got “a little ahead of ourselves on this planning.”
“The planning work essentially became all-consuming to the point where we don’t have the focus to make the progress I wanted to see in the other areas,” Eggleston said.
On the issue of noise, the Palo Alto airport is working to install new software that would allow proactive identification of flights that are not following the city’s guidance for noise abatement, he said.
“Currently we have to wait for someone to complain,” he said. “But the idea here is to try to implement doing that proactively … and engaging with those pilots.”
Eggleston also pushed back against an assertion from Council member Pat Burt that the city is effectively “jettisoning” the long-range plan. Rather, city staff is taking a step back and preparing to present a revised plan in early 2026 based on feedback from the council and the community.
“What we are proposing is to pause the principal effort on it while we have some emphasis on these other issues and kind of regroup and define what the next steps will be for this year,” Eggleston said.
Staff writer Lisa Moreno contributed to this report.
