The Los Alamitos City Council failed to maintain local control over land use decisions in the City. This self-defeating action last week is the result of two council members’ premature opposition to the proposed Lampson project. The project that has yet to start environmental review, receive Planning Commission scrutiny, and ultimately, a City Council decision.
Councilmembers Hibard and Murphy chose to listen to Carol Churchill’s spin tactics and conspiracy theories rather than their own staffs’ factual reports and recommendations. Their actions put the City in peril of HCD decertification of the Housing Element, loss of certain State funding sources and loss of local land use control.
The Building Industry Association, its affiliates and members are organizations that advocate for good public policy that supports housing in Orange County and Southern California. I work with their leaders and members to provide airport land use compatibility analysis and advice to ensure that their efforts are aligned with airport development and aviation safety objectives. Both are critical drivers of our economy.
I prepared the FAA application for the Lampson project and I continue to support the project’s planning and environmental analysis to ensure that it meets aviation safety and noise compatibility criteria. My practice is providing FAA airspace services to projects through all stages of acquisition, planning, design, environmental review, and construction and do so for all parties involved in land use planning, including cities and ALUCs. FAA airspace clearance is a very early step in planning for a project located within an airport influence area. I have studied all of the City’s Housing Element sites to ensure that they comply with the FAA’s airspace protection requirements, as well as noise and safety criteria.
Councilmember Hibard did not dispute any of the analysis in my letter about the faulty conclusions in the ALUC determination. She refused to acknowledge the fact that all of the Housing Element sites, including the Lampson site (Site 6 in the Housing Element), comply with the ALUC noise and safety criteria. Instead, she retreads a false safety argument, put forward by Carol Churchill, that the Lampson site is not suitable for residential development.
She had no answer for Mayor Pro Tem Nefulda’s question of how she reconciles the existing safety of kids playing soccer at Arbor Park, baseball at Los Alamitos Youth Baseball Park and families playing at South Highlands Park. These are existing recreational facilities in her district located as close or closer to the Base runways than the Lampson site.
Most importantly, what Councilmember Hibard failed to mention in the City Council hearing was the results of the FAA’s analysis of the Lampson project. The FAA found that the project is safe and issued a Determination of No Hazard to Air Navigation.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Nick Johnson
Johnson Aviation
Editor’s Note: Mr. Johnson’s Letter to the Editor, with his disclosures and comments, comes after he was called out by Council member Emily Hibard at the most recent Los Alamitos City Council meeting for submitting a letter of support for “overrule supporting the Lampson Housing project, without disclose he had submitted paperwork to the FAA on behalf of the project. Moreover, the ENE earlier published a Letter to the Editor written by Johnson wherein he does not mention the disclosures mentioned in this week’s letter. We welcome all opinions and invite our readers to send us letters reflecting their thoughts.
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