Planners Hear Calls for Closure of Meadowlark

More than 300 people attended a Huntington Beach Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night to discuss the fate of Meadowlark Airport, and most favored its demise.

Nearly 60 speakers addressed the commission, which at 10 p.m. had yet to vote on a proposal to shut down the 1940s airstrip to build homes and a shopping center.

Brothers Dick and Art Nerio, who own the airport, have asked the city to rezone 65 acres of their property, east of Bolsa Chica Street between Warner and Heil avenues, so they can build 750 residential units on 50 acres and a commercial development on the remaining 15 acres. The property is now zoned for low-density residential use.

In its report to the commission, the planning staff recommended approval of most of the Nerios’ request, including the land-use change to a planned community designation. But planners recommended that the residential development be scaled down to 600 units.

Already Rejected

The prospect of the city’s acquiring and operating the airport--one of two small airports remaining in Orange County--appeared remote. The idea had already been proposed and rejected by the City Council in 1972.

Dick Nerio, whose family has owned the tiny airstrip since 1952, told the boisterous audience that both he and his father live near the airport and “will not let an undesirable development� be built nearby.

“The family does not want to sell Meadowlark to anybody . . . or lease it for general aviation use as an airport,� Nerio said. “Believe me, folks, I will build something that everyone will be proud of.�

The development will include a “first-class� shopping center, he said.

Unlike the last public hearing, where the majority of speakers included pilots and residents who favored the continued operation of the airport, Tuesday night’s crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of its closure. One man played what he claimed was a videotape shot from his home of planes buzzing dangerously close to power lines. It was met with cheers.

Expensive Proposition

“Those airplane noises are what you hear at 2, 3, 4 in the morning,� said Guy Van Patten. His wife Nancy said, “My airspace is being polluted.�

Acquiring and running the airport would be an expensive proposition for the city, the planning staff’s report said. “Essentially, the City would have to completely redevelop the airport from runway to structures,� it said. “Land cost is estimated at $32.5 million; a total cost estimate including relocation of impacted property owners (for mandatory runway expansion) . . . would be between $40 and $50 million.�

City planners cited eight main effects of closure and development of the property. Among them, general aviation pilots would have less tie-down space for their planes; development of the property would result in traffic volumes on surrounding streets increasing “greatly over the next 10 years�; no identified sewer or water capacity for the proposed development, and it may be “subject to contamination by hazardous substances and leakage of methane gas,� the report said.

About 200 people attended the first public hearing on proposed development of the airport. At least 10 accidents in 10 years at the airfield have prompted some neighbors to call for its closure.

Known Burial Sites

However, two dozen speakers at that hearing on July 28 urged the city to either prevent any high-density commercial and residential development or to acquire and operate the airport.

Some residents who said they live as close as 300 feet from runways told commissioners that they preferred the noise of planes to the traffic that the proposed commercial center and residential community would generate. And the chairwoman of the city’s new historical resources board urged further archeological studies of what she said were known burial sites on the property.

After the hearing, the seven-member Planning Commission voted to have city planners conduct a study of the city’s possible purchase of the facility, as well as to prepare plans for developments with maximum residential densities between 400 and 750 units.

Dick Harlow, a spokesman for the airport owners, has said the brothers do not want to sell their property and are eager to proceed with a development of homes and stores.

The Nerios have for years sought to close the aging airport. In 1980, the family received City Council approval to convert the privately owned airstrip to a trailer park. They apparently abandoned that plan but were denied a zone change a few years later for a mixed commercial and residential development.