‘Multiple-Airport’ Proposal Unveiled : Roberts, Filner Back Plan That Would Combine Use of Brown Field, Lindbergh

San Diego City Councilmen Ron Roberts and Bob Filner on Tuesday unveiled a proposed “multiple airport” solution to crowding at Lindbergh Field and called on the San Diego Assn. of Governments to add the option to the list of airport sites it has been studying for a year.

The two councilmen, who have feuded for more than a year over Roberts’ efforts to close Lindbergh and move the region’s major airport into Filner’s district, released details of a compromise plan to expand city-owned Brown Field on Otay Mesa and operate it as a major airport in conjunction with Lindbergh Field.

The plan was drawn up by consultants hired by California Structures and the Pardee Construction Co., two major Otay Mesa landowners that stand to lose large tracts ticketed for residential and industrial development if the city chooses to build a huge South Bay airport, one of the options being considered by Sandag. The Miramar Naval Air Station and a tract east of Miramar are the other two alternatives under consideration by Sandag.

Unanswered Question

Left unanswered, however, is the key question of how Brown and Lindbergh would share the burden of serving the 35 million airline passengers expected annually by the middle of the next century. Roberts and Filner, who represent Lindbergh and Brown fields, respectively, previously have made it clear that they expect the major airport to be located in the other man’s district.

According to Filner, the results of technical studies on the physical capacities of each airport, noise contours and environmental considerations will “determine the mix” of passengers and air freight possible at each airport. Within those limitations, it will be up to the council to decide how many passengers it wants to handle at those airports, and whether to attempt to add Montgomery Field and Palomar Airport in Carlsbad to the plan.

R. Michael Murphy, president of California Structures, predicted that “the market is going to dictate what the dominant airport is going to be.

Noting Lindbergh’s convenience to most of the flying public, he said: “I don’t know about you, but I’m not driving to Brown Field to fly to Phoenix or Los Angeles.”

For Tuesday, however, Filner and Roberts put aside their disagreements and stressed the importance of their agreement on a conceptual proposal to solve increasing crowding at 471-acre Lindbergh Field, which now serves 11 million passengers annually.

The news conference came five days after Roberts and Filner asked Sandag in a letter to study the multiple-airport option that they first discussed Aug. 26.

Several Points of View

Filner called the multiple airport plan “a coming together on a concept between several points of view that were seen as antagonistic.” The council members were joined at Tuesday’s news conference by Dan Pegg, president of San Diego Economic Development Corp. and David Dolkas, president of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

The plan was quickly denounced by Nancy Palmtag, spokesman for the Airport Coalition, which has been pressing for the end of commercial airline use of Lindbergh.

“It’s a short-sighted fix. It’s another Band-Aid fix. . . . This is very unsatisfactory,” she said.

Palmtag criticized Filner for voicing concerns about safety at Lindbergh while advocating its continued use for passenger travel. She also expressed reservations about Roberts’ retreat from his call to phase out Lindbergh.

“Lindbergh’s not safe. Brown Field’s not safe,” she said.

For Roberts, who said the multiple airport plan has “my full support,” the new proposal represents a major retreat from his long-held goal of closing Lindbergh and building a huge binational airport on the Mexican border. Though Roberts held out prospects that the expanded Brown Field could one day be linked with Tijuana International Airport, there was no discussion Tuesday of the binational plan that took Roberts on voyages to Mexico and Washington for discussions with transportation officials on both sides of the border.

Murphy said Roberts was swayed by arguments that a binational airport covering as much as 6,600 acres could jeopardize the development of an industrial area expected to provide 140,000 jobs and create a $21-billion annual impact on the region. Others close to the issue have claimed that Roberts has realized that the binational-airport proposal lacks necessary support.

The plan released Tuesday would keep Brown Field north of Otay Mesa Road, expanding it to about 1,500 acres by acquiring a tract northeast of Brown Field owned by The Baldwin Co. A 12,000-foot runway and an 8,000-foot runway would be built on a southwest to northeast axis.

An Update to Plan

The new airport would be required to coordinate takeoffs and landings with the Tijuana control tower, but airliners would not cross the border into Mexico, Murphy said.

Murphy said the plan became feasible when a consultant updating the Brown Field master plan for the city determined that the tilt of the runways, combined with airline instrument technology, would allow airliners to approach Brown Field from an angle north of the Otay Mountains, making landings safe.

The consultant, Ron Ahlfeldt of P&D; Technologies, said Tuesday that the use of “localizer directed approach” technology would allow pilots to use instruments to descend to 300 feet with visibility of as little as 1 mile before seeing the runway.

Takeoffs would occur to the west, over the Tijuana River Valley, avoiding more than 6,000 homes planned by Pardee and Baldwin west of the airport, and a separate mega-development on 20,000 acres of unincorporated land north of Brown Field planned by Baldwin and known as the former Otay Ranch.

But Jack Koerper, special projects director for Sandag, said the consultants who reviewed Brown Field for the agency, determined that an instrument landing system was not feasible there.

Koerper said that Roberts’ and Filner’s call for a study of the new option by October is unrealistic if they want a total study of safety, noise and environment considerations. Sandag will discuss whether to add the new option at a Sept. 21 meeting, he said.