Allan Appel Photo
John Laudano faces off with Avports spokesman Andrew King.
More than 100 Morris Cove neighbors rang the alarm bell for Tweed representatives at a three-hour meeting Monday night, cautioning that the regional airport’s continued growth in plane traffic, routes, and passengers has led to a steep decline in their quality of life.
They painted that troubling picture at Nathan Hale School as airport representatives, local alder Sal DeCola and city officials hosted a second annual community update.
The woes they brought up ranged from the parking and traffic variety to water in toilets shaking when planes fly low overhead; plaster walls cracking with the decibel-caused vibrations; and life-altering noise and air pollution such that a man can’t cook a decent burger on his grill without jet fuel fumes all but ruining the aroma and the picnic.
The crowd at Monday’s meetup included New Haven Morris Covers, as well as residents of East Haven, Branford, and beyond, who all thronged a standing-room-only meeting space at the Townsend Avenue public school.
The meeting comes as the budget airline Avelo has added two dozen new routes since they first started flying out of Tweed in November 2021. Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) recently granted a key approval for Tweed’s $165 million airport runway and terminal expansion plan, to be undertaken by the airport’s management company, Avports.
Click here, here, and here for previous stories on neighbors’ protests to Tweed’s expansion plans, including its approaches to parking and environmental concerns.
Off the table for the evening was discussion of the emerging runway expansion plan and building of the new terminal on the East Haven side of the 400-acre airport — although officials reported 45 percent design completion on the runway and 30 percent design completion on the proposed new terminal.
On the table for what turned out to be a cantankerous, at times angry, but also oddly congenial three-hour talk-fest — as if the opponents were by now sparring partners who knew each other’s moves quite well — were how officials could address the effects on neighbors of the daily operations of the growing airport.
Airport Executive Director Tom Rafter, Avelo's Mike Quiello, and Mayor Elicker field Covers' questions.
That growth, according to The New HVN CEO Michael Jones, includes 26 destinations; by next month, 17 departures daily; a 40 percent increase in passengers, up from about 701,000 passengers to 978,000 a year; and 98 percent of those flight operations, added Jones, occurring within the assigned times. That is: no engine-revving departures before 6:30 a.m. or arrivals after 11:00 p.m.
About two dozen people took to the microphone and hurled their questions at a phalanx of officials, with Avports’ spokesman Andrew King, who knows the neighbors well, moderating and handling the often confrontational outbursts like a seasoned congenial game show host.
Only the game was a very serious business.
“There are no sides here, just neighbors,” said King, in an aspirational moment before proceedings began.
The issues discussed included parking, schedules, and handling of weather-caused delays and diversions; speeding jet fuel delivery trucks along Thompson Avenue; sleep-shattering noise; and airport traffic clogging streets like the Fort Hale Road so that, according to neighbor Carol Lawson, her evening dinner guests may as well sleep over because on some flight-crowded evenings, no one is able even to pull out of the driveway.
And the officials got an earful more.
Of the speakers taking their agreed upon five minutes each (after a 20-minute discussion on how to maintain order and civility) all but one expressed deep frustration in tones ranging from the critical to skeptical to accusations of outright bad faith.
They questioned whether officials were living up to their promises, abiding by the noise ordinances. Only one speaker was positive, and she refused to give her name to a reporter.
“The FAA [noise] standards,” said neighbor Patricia Ranney, “are not good enough for us.” She cited Tweed’s uniqueness among airports being so cheek-by-jowl with residences. “The footprint of the airport is simply not big enough to handle the noise and fumes of commercial aircraft.”
“I agree,” said King. “We should expand the FAA minimums. But we cannot regulate the kind of aircraft that fly in. We will make adjustments where we can.”
“I live across from the terminal and now can’t breathe in my own house,” testified a Burr Street resident. “I’ve lived there for 30 years!” She demanded that something be done especially about the jet engines’ idling time.
“We don’t want to idle longer than we have to,” responded Mike Quiello, Avelo’s head of safety, security, and operational excellence.
And King added: “We need to find a way to address these self-inflicted wounds. I promise we won’t start engines before 6:30 a.m.”
Many speakers accused the airport of violating the city’s noise ordinance (which Mayor Elicker denied was the case), and which prompted HVN’s Executive Director Tom Rafter to remind folks that by terms of the 43-year lease agreement, the city has transferred sponsorship of the airport, and therefore not city ordinance but FAA decibel and other standards apply.
East Haven neighbor Kathleen Spencer.
Then East Haven resident Matthew Lieber, addressing the mayor and other officials, said, “Your arguments are honest and yet people are still enraged.“
He asked if Avports could be prevailed upon to make “voluntary agreements” with the city to ameliorate problems.
“The airlines have voluntarily agreed on hours of arrival and departure,” the mayor replied. “They did make a good faith effort, although we are not satisfied.”
“My 1937 house was mitigated” with airport sponsored noise insulation “and it helped,” said Ed Fitzgerald, whose Burr Street house is right across from the airport. “But now the 737 thrust is so strong, there are dozens of cracks in my walls and particles of the chimney are coming off … I got a letter from the FAA that they don’t deal with cracks. You’re all invited to my house!”
Long-time Fort Hale Road residents John and Renne Grestini asked if Fort Hale Road, a two-way street which is often clogged with passengers arriving and also departing from the airport, might be made one-way for passengers driving to the airport (and a second street, like Hall Street designated for people leaving the airport).
“We need to look at such options,” replied City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, who, like several other officials attending, actually lives in the neighborhood of the airport. He said a study had been made but no action taken because, as Mayor Elicker added, “we don’t want just to displace the problem to another area.”
“We can’t just study it … we need deliverables” for residents, added King, who, as moderator and “stakeholder strategist” regularly took the role in the proceedings as the advocate of residents.
And that’s precisely what happened.
After the formal meeting ended, the mayor, officials from traffic and parking, met with Fort Hale Road residents and others and outlined how they would revisit the issue with traffic volume and other studies now that the airport has grown much busier in the last year.
Deputy Director of Transportation, Traffic and Parking Eric Hoffman said if Avelo provided him in advance a several weeks’ schedule of arrival and departures, he could, for example, pre-position enforcement staff at Fort Hale Road and in the general airport area to help relieve some of the illegal parking.
Jones and other officials also pledged to implement, within a month, noise decibel monitors at the homes of skeptical residents and at other locations. They also pointed to a dedicated page on the airport site for one-stop-shop noise complaints, mitigation program eligibility, and other features that the airport is fine-tuning; and Jones also pledged to work with the fuel delivery trucks on Thompson Avenue to be more neighborhood-conscious in their practices.
And the city and airport also agreed to accept neighbor Lisa Bassani’s suggestion to explore funding to equip all homes in the area with low-cost but effective HEPA air filters.
Fort Hale Road residents John and Renee Gersimi.
As he left, Jones called the meeting productive with such take-aways “actionable” and practical ways the airport is learning from neighbors and their concerns.
King also said that to deal with issues of the planes’ flight paths, the airport is arranging for a July 9 public session with the airport’s air traffic control staff.
Still, long-time neighbor and critic of the airport expansion Jules Scanley termed such actions “some benefits in small pieces.” Yet he termed the evening in general little more than “window dressing.”
Stay tuned.