Blending air traffic, land use

Two major studies are getting under way and a third is proposed to help public officials sort out land-use issues affecting the futures of Fairchild Air Force Base and Spokane International Airport.

One study aims to keep incompatible land uses from endangering an air base that represents an estimated 8 percent, or $1.2 billion, share of Spokane County’s economy.

Another is intended to minimize air space conflicts between Fairchild and the nearby international airport, which contributes an estimated $896.5 million a year to the economies of Spokane and Kootenai counties.

Also, Airway Heights city officials are proposing an $80,000 study of land uses in the part of the city south of U.S. Highway 2. Much of that area is in a Fairchild crash zone. Interim City Manager Lee Bennett said the area has a mix of light industrial, commercial, mining and manufactured housing zones. There are several mobile home parks and an extended-stay motel called Solar World.

The studies come against a background of increasing pressure for residential development. Faulty county responses to that pressure have resulted in authorization of a 207-unit housing development in an existing airport crash zone, among other problems.

Now Spokane County has received a $244,000 Department of Defense grant for a joint land-use study of measures to prevent similar encroachment at Fairchild and to mitigate the effects of growth. The study will bring together local governments and other interested parties, including Spokane County, Airway Heights and Medical Lake, Spokane International Airport, the Kalispel and Spokane tribes, the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County, Greater Spokane Inc., and the Spokane Home Builders Association.

“Fairchild is currently in good shape relative to other bases,” said Lee Paul, chief of engineering and planning for the base. “Currently, we have really little incompatible growth, but now is the time to be working with the community and addressing these things for the future.”

Meanwhile, the airport, operated jointly by Spokane and Spokane County, is undertaking a study to make its future flight patterns as compatible as possible with Fairchild’s. The question is whether a planned third runway should be parallel to the airport’s main runway or to the air base’s, which is at a slight angle.

Ordinarily, a new runway would be parallel to an airport’s main runway for safety and efficiency.

County officials implemented land-use protections for a future runway with that alignment, but a 1994 study concluded the new runway should be parallel to Fairchild’s. Airport and air base officials agree more study is needed.

County officials and landowners want an answer, so the airport got $150,000 from the Washington Department of Transportation’s Aviation Division for a definitive study.

The airport runway-alignment study is to be incorporated into the base-protection study, which is expected to be finished by the end of next year.

Airport Director Neal Sealock said the alignment study will depend heavily on the advice of federal air traffic controllers. It’s a question of finding the least troublesome point for the air traffic conflicts inevitably created by runways that aren’t parallel.

The problem is manageable no matter which alignment is selected, he said.

Paul, the Fairchild planner, said base officials also can live with the results of the alignment study, but they hope to avoid having to live with new neighbors who complain about noisy, low-flying aircraft.

Also, he said, “We don’t want increased risk to the public because of incompatible development.”

Fairchild hopes to convince county officials to adopt Department of Defense “air installation compatible use zones,” known as AICUZ. Those military land-use standards are the best way to satisfy the state prohibition against communities impeding military bases, Paul suggested. Local adoption of the guidelines also is one of the things the Department of Defense considers in decisions about base missions or closures.

Technically, Paul said, Air Force leaders don’t consider the guidelines satisfied if even a small detail is omitted. However, local rules can vary if they provide greater protection.

Perhaps the biggest changes here would be different runway crash zones and tougher measures to prevent noise complaints.

Spokane County has noise zones, but a 75-decibel threshold keeps the zones from extending much beyond the runways at Fairchild and the airport. AICUZ standards call for two additional zones: 65-69 decibels and 70-74 decibels.

Paul said military standards recommend no housing be allowed in the 65- to 69-decibel zone and “strongly recommends” against housing in the 70- to 74-decibel zone.

If local governments determine housing must be allowed, the AICUZ guidelines call for sound-insulating construction that blocks out 25 to 30 decibels.

Tentatively mapped sound contours, based on Fairchild’s current mission without bombers and as home of the 92nd Air Refueling Wing and the Washington Air National Guard’s 141st Air Refueling Wing, show relatively few potential noise-compatibility problems.

Some of those contours were created last year when county commissioners opened, then closed, the door to housing in light industrial zones on the West Plains. Further study would be needed to determine whether the structures satisfy the military sound-insulation standards.

Sealock said the Federal Aviation Administration suggests similar noise standards for commercial airports. He would like to have more stringent noise-protection zones, but only if they are enforced.

Airports can lose federal funding if they fail to enforce regulations or even fail to oppose incompatible land uses, Sealock said. The best solution is to keep residential development away from the airport, he said.

“We would advocate that, unless it’s the last possible place to build, why enter into that realm?” Sealock said.

That includes the 207-unit Blue Grouse single-family housing development to be built mostly within the easternmost crash zone of the airport’s existing crosswind runway, he said.

County commissioners inadvertently allowed single-family housing in crash zones last year. Evan and Tabitha Babin were a couple of days too late in seeking a building permit for the home they wanted to build, but Blue Grouse owners obtained legally vested rights before commissioners closed the loophole. The Blue Grouse project has since received preliminary approval from the county hearing examiner, but Sealock is still urging county officials to block the portion inside the crash zone.

Sealock also opposes substitution of new state-suggested crash zones for the zones in force at the airport.

County Building and Planning Department officials have directed their staff to study crash-zone guidelines suggested by the Aviation Division of the Washington Department of Transportation. However, county planner Jim Falk said the study has taken a back seat to other projects.

State aviation planner Kerri Woehler said the guidelines include no input from the FAA, but are based on a 1993 University of California at Berkeley study. They’re intended to be helpful, but not the last word, for counties trying to comply with Washington state’s Growth Management Act, Woehler said.

Woehler said the guidelines are adaptable, but the guidelines themselves say they aren’t designed for “primary” airports. A revised version is under development to reflect the different accident rate and runway length of commercial and primary airports, the guidelines state.

AICUZ standards call for a 3,000-by-3,000-foot “clear zone” at both ends of runways, where only agricultural use is allowed, followed by a 5,000-foot-long zone with no housing, and a 7,000-foot outer zone with no more than two houses per acre.

There could be no more than 50 people per acre in either of the outer crash zones at any time.

County commissioners plan to ban housing in all current crash zones, but the military safety zones would extend 1,100 feet farther at each end of Fairchild’s runway.

Changes in the crash zones at the eastern end of Fairchild’s 3.7-mile runway would require joint action by the county and Airway Heights.

Sealock hopes the ongoing studies will lead to broader protection for Fairchild and Spokane International, perhaps in the form of a shared “airport influence area.”

“If it’s compatible with the AICUZ criteria, we would be on board with that,” Paul said.