Steele Creek residents want bigger airport noise map
The noise footprint at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport is shrinking, which leaves some Steele Creek residents on the outside looking in.
The airport is updating its noise contour maps, using a flight frequency and time of day model to determine which surrounding properties are significantly impacted. Homes and businesses within the map are eligible for voluntary programs like sound-proofing or property acquisition.
Homes outside the boundary are not.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t hear it,” said Rob Adams, project manager with consultant Landrum & Brown. “It doesn’t mean you won’t like it. It means it is not considered to be significant sound.”
The last noise map was created in 1996 covering about twice the area of the new map. More than 2,700 properties and 6,700 residents fell within the 1996 boundary, along with 15 churches and two schools.
The 2015 map covers 5.6 square miles. It includes 50 homes and 133 residents, and two churches. The map should grow by 2020 to cover 6.8 square miles and 169 homes, 492 residents, five churches and one school.
“We’re seeing this across the country,” Adams said. “These contours are shrinking.”
The main reason is airplanes. In 2000, second generation aircraft stopped flying. Those planes, certified before November 1975, were noisier than later generation planes.
“It produces a much smaller contour,” said Jack Christine, deputy aviation director for Charlotte-Douglas. “The airplanes now are much quieter than they used to be. The formula is pretty much the same.”
The increased area expected by 2020 coincides with the anticipated 24 percent jump in flights.
“It’s more flights in the schedule,” Christine said.
Because the previous map was larger than the new one, almost all of the affected properties had some type of mitigation program offered to them. The airport purchased some properties. Screen door, window and attic installation were installed in other areas.
The ongoing public comment period from almost one year ago hasn’t involved many of those residents.
“Most of the folks that we’ve talked to don’t live inside the contour,” Christine said.
Some of the more than 50 residents who attended a Oct. 14 public hearing at Olympic High School just wanted updates. Vince Salazar bought his home on Whispering Pines Lane in 1989. Noise isn’t his big concern.
“They bought all the houses on the opposite side,” Salazar said. “My main concern today is to find out what they’re going to do with the other side.”
Other residents expressed frustration. Lawrence and Daisy Grandberry live just off the northern end of the runways.
“They said if you’re not in the radius, there’s nothing they can do for you,” Grandberry said.
The Grandberrys say they are almost close enough to see plane wheels and passengers during landings. Visiting family won’t stay at their home. They’ve had china break in the cabinet due to planes overhead, Daisy said. Often, the traffic overhead is constant.
“Saturdays, I leave here,” she said.
Brenda Mayer lives and runs a business south of the runways.
“It has gotten to the point where we can’t sit on our deck and talk on our cellphones,” she said.
Mayer attributes stress cracks in her home to plane traffic. She doesn’t believe she will be able to sell her house because of it.
“Our largest assets are in distress,” Mayer said. “All this has to do with noise, but it’s much bigger than just noise.”
Christine said relief could come when flight patterns change. About four years ago, flights went to a computer-based routing system relying less on pilot steering. The result has been less “natural dispersion,” Christine said, so a few residents now get all the traffic instead of more residents getting it spread evenly.
“That’s something we’ve told them we need to take a look at,” he said. “That was an unintended consequence.”
The noise modeling system used for the new maps penalizes late night and early morning flights, when ambient noise is lowest. Officials say they hope to help as many neighbors as possible, but some noise is to be expected with more than 700 flights per day.
Residents just want to hear less of it.
“They have maps that are established,” Mayer said, “but they have not drawn them out far enough.”
John Marks: 803-831-8166
Did you know?
The Charlotte airport was built in 1935 with three runways on 500 acres.
Air carrier service began in 1937 with two daily flights, serving 3,500 passengers that year.
The federal government took control in 1941 to establish Morris Field Air Base, used for bomber training in World War II. Two runways were lengthened to 5,000 feet.
United Airlines began service as Capital Airlines in 1946. By 1952, the airport had a total of 50 daily flights.
The city extended runways to 7,502 feet in 1951, and another to 7,846 feet in 1965.
A 70,000-square-foot passenger terminal opened in 1954 at what was then Douglas Municipal Airport, named for former Charlotte Mayor Ben E. Douglas Sr.
In 1979, a new 10,000-foot parallel runway opened.
In 1982, a new 325,000-square-foot passenger terminal with 25 gates was constructed and the airport renamed Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.
An older runway was extended to 8,676 feet in 1994.
A third parallel runway opened in 2010 at 9,000 feet.
The airport is publicly owned, operated by the city and managed by the aviation department. It sits on about 5,000 acres.
This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 11:35 AM with the headline "Steele Creek residents want bigger airport noise map."