The Federal Aviation Administration has found that the Town of East Hampton complied with federal regulations in connection with its use of airport revenue, in responding to lawsuits challenging restrictions on operations at East Hampton Airport.
In a final report issued on July 23, the F.A.A. said the town "is permitted to use airport revenue to pay for legal fees when such fees are incurred in connection with airport-related litigation." The town issued a statement reporting the finding on Monday.
Eleven aviation industry groups and users of the airport filed a complaint with the F.A.A. in 2016 claiming that the town had violated federal law in allocating airport revenue to legal services. The agency issued a determination in favor of the town in 2018, but the plaintiffs appealed it. The final order affirms the 2018 determination.
The town board passed laws limiting use of aircraft deemed noisy by the FA.A. in 2015, limiting "noisy" aircraft to one takeoff and landing per week during the summer season, and prohibiting all takeoffs and landings from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. That prohibition was extended for "noisy" aircraft to between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m.
The federal Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, barred the first provision after a group of aviation interests called Friends of East Hampton Airport sued, but the curfews were allowed to stand and took effect in July 2015.
In November 2016, however, a federal appeals court both affirmed the lower court's decision barring the once-per-week restriction and struck down the laws pertaining to curfews, stating that the town could not on its own enact use restrictions, but had to follow the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act and seek federal approval.
The agency's July 23 final order closely follows a consultant's report to the town board showing both an 8-percent increase in airport operations between late June and Sept. 30 last year over the same period in 2018, and a broader trend of increasing operations between 2015 and 2019. In that report, presented on July 14, Adam Scholten, a senior consultant with HMMH, told the board that overall activity had increased by 23 percent between the summers of 2015 and 2019, with helicopter activity up 56 percent and seaplane activity up by 40 percent.
Residents both here and elsewhere, on both the North and South Forks and from as far away as Queens, have long complained about ceaseless traffic to and from the airport in the summer, and its detrimental impact on their quality of life. A caller to the board's July 14 meeting who identified himself as a resident of the Astoria neighborhood in Queens asked that the airport be closed. "The helicopters fly very low over us," he said, echoing many East End residents.
In response to the increasing traffic and use of noisy aircraft, board members have said that closing the airport is a possibility, once grant assurances — obligations on the part of the town to operate the airport under particular F.A.A. guidelines — expire. That is scheduled to happen next year.
