The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee emphatically endorsed a plan to mitigate noise from aircraft flying to and from East Hampton Town Airport when it met on Saturday, noting that “years of litigation and more than $9 million in legal fees” have brought no relief to beleaguered residents in the form of restrictions on aircraft operations, particularly of noisy aircraft including helicopters and older jets.
The plan, which the committee prepared, posits that viable pathways to imposing restrictions exist and can be achieved, identifying “practical steps the town can take” to implement “meaningful progress on airport noise while avoiding the procedural missteps that derailed previous efforts.”
In 2022, following the expiration of federal grant assurances the previous year, the town board planned to close the airport for 33 hours before opening a “new,” private airport on the site operating under a prior-permission-required framework and with new restrictions on aircraft operations in place. These would have limited aircraft operators to one takeoff and one landing per day. Restrictions based on the size and noise of aircraft would have been imposed, and aircraft operations would have been subject to curfews.
The restrictions and curfews were aimed at alleviating residents’ complaints, which soared in tandem with aircraft operations, particularly helicopter travel to and from New York City. At the 11th hour, however, a New York State Supreme Court justice, who has since retired, issued a temporary restraining order blocking the town from enacting that plan, following oral arguments in three parallel lawsuits challenging it.
On Dec. 2, an attorney with the Rupp Pfalzgraf law firm, which was retained by the Coalition to Transform East Hampton Airport, sent a letter to the town outlining what he said were available options to reduce the airport’s impact on residents. Barry Raebeck, who is on the Wainscott citizens advisory committee, is the director of the coalition.
In his Dec. 23 reply, Jacob Turner, the East Hampton Town attorney, largely disputed the firm’s conclusions. The town board did, however, vote last Thursday to retain the HMMH consultancy, which specializes in airport and airspace planning as well as noise and vibration control. HMMH is to assemble data on airport operations from 2021 through 2025, including complaint data; generate complaint and operations summaries, and present its findings to the town board.
Last year, New York City banned nonessential helicopter flights, such as tourism, from city-owned heliports starting in late 2029 unless they meet the strictest Federal Aviation Administration standards, which will effectively eliminate older, louder helicopters. A bill in the State Legislature would establish a tax on noise from nonessential helicopter and seaplane flights in cities with a population of one million or more. Members of the committee also pointed to Naples, Fla., which won an appeal of the F.A.A.’s 2001 ruling that it had violated F.A.A. rules by banning noisy “stage 2” aircraft, defined as an older, louder type of jet. These “bode well for us,” said Marc Frons of the citizens advisory committee, who presented the plan on Saturday.
The plan “has grown out of the dialogue that the committee has been having with the town, also the work that Barry’s group has done,” Mr. Frons said. “And what I’ve tried to do here is to put that together as a proactive way of moving forward, fully recognizing that there are many other alternatives.”
The three-tiered action plan starts with immediate actions including completion of comprehensive data collection for New York State Environmental Quality Review Act compliance, or SEQRA, which was paused by the 2022 restraining order. To that end, HMMH would be directed to expand its analysis to include a breakdown of operations by aircraft type; time-of-day and day-of-week distribution with a focus on weekend mornings; geographic distribution of noise complaints; compliance rates with voluntary curfews and flight routes, and year-over-year trend analysis. Creation of a “public dashboard” showing monthly operation counts by aircraft type, noise complaint volume and geographic distribution, and compliance with voluntary programs is another first-tier action, as are a strengthening of voluntary curfew and route programs, incorporation of noise provisions in all new leases, and consultation with New York City and Westchester officials, jurisdictions that have found lawful paths to restrict noisy aircraft.
Medium-term actions, to be implemented six to 18 months from now, include evaluation of the feasibility of enacting restrictions on helicopters through a federal aviation regulation known as Part 161 or via the town’s proprietary authority; completion of a draft generic environmental impact statement, building on the SEQRA process resumed in the first tier, and development of a restriction proposal that complies with the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act.
The third tier calls for tracking and support of legislation such as the state’s proposed helicopter noise tax legislation; building of coalitions with affected communities such as Montauk, the North Fork, and New York City neighborhoods affected by helicopter traffic bound for the South Fork; documenting impacts for future litigation or legislation, and preservation of privatization as a long-term option.
The recommended action plan will be formalized in a letter, which Councilwoman Cate Rogers, the town board’s liaison to the citizens committee, said she would take to the board.
