"Homes built at Oceana despite noise, crash threat"

Monday, September 10, 2001

Homes built at Oceana despite noise, crash threat 
Jets fly over Hidden Oaks in Virginia Beach. The average noise levels in
Hidden Oaks is 75 decibels. The Federal Aviation Administration says
most land uses are considered compatible where levels average 65 or
lower. 
By CLINT RILEY
The Virginian-Pilot


VIRGINIA BEACH -- One-third of Virginia Beach's 425,000 residents now
live in a neighborhood where military jet noise is so high that the
Federal Aviation Administration considers the land incompatible for
homes, schools and hospitals. 

More than 23,000 of those same individuals live on property where the
Navy knows that military jet crashes are more likely, according to the
latest U.S. Census and military data. 
 
Beach leaders have compounded the problem -- and the number of citizen
complaints -- during the past two decades by encouraging the Navy to
operate Oceana Naval Air Station at maximum levels, while allowing
developers to build more housing closer to the airfield, critics say. 

Perhaps even more disturbing is that the development boom around the
Navy's busiest East Coast fighter base took place because the city's
main land-use policy is supported by outdated and incorrect information
supplied by the Navy. 

The inability of the city and the Navy to properly coordinate land use
around the base gives rise to stories like those of Bruce Litton, who
grew up around Navy airfields in Florida and California, and now lives
in Hidden Oaks. 

Navy F/A-18 Hornets roar above Litton's neighborhood so frequently that
18-month-old Carter Litton utters, ``Uh-oh!'' and jams fingers in his
ears every time he hears one. 

``It breaks my heart,'' his father said. ``It's so sad.'' 

The Littons' $200,000 dream house off Holland Road, with its double-pane
windows, should have insulated the family from thundering jets. It
hasn't. 

``Am I not suppose to take the little guy outside?'' asked Litton, 35, a
nurse anesthetist and son of a career sailor. ``It's so incredibly loud
that you can't take another second of it. It's like a wave. You think
it's gone and it comes back. Some nights there is one going over every
20 seconds.'' 

The average noise levels in Hidden Oaks is 75 decibels. The FAA, which
issues noise compatibility guidelines for communities, states: Most land
uses are considered compatible where noise levels average 65 or lower. 

There have been stories like the Littons' before: a frustrated homeowner
living within earshot of Oceana and confronting the national need for
expert fighter pilots. 

But the problem in Virginia Beach is more widespread than many military
leaders or politicians have admitted previously. The presence of so many
people in high noise zones gives insight into why a city with a long
tradition of close ties to the Navy now harbors increasingly vocal
anti-noise activists willing to challenge the status quo. 

Naval air maintenance crew members inspect an F/A-18 Hornet fighter at
Oceana Naval Air Station on Saturday. Development is growing closer to
the base. 

In the early '90s, Hidden Oaks was just another 17-acre plot of farmland
on the city's fast-growing southern ridge. When Century Mark Development
Group LLC eyed the property for homes in early 1996, the first step was
to get the land rezoned from agricultural to residential. 

That happened in August 1996 when the Planning Commission and the City
Council approved the request. As rezonings go, there wasn't much unusual
about it except for an important fact city officials weren't told. 

The land was in an area the Navy knew harbored an increased risk of a
jet crash. 

Navy rules placed the farmland in a crash zone in 1979, but those rules,
designed to protect the public and pilots, were never applied at Oceana
or supplied to city planners until 18 years later. 

Internal Navy documents show the Navy failed to apply the expanded
accident potential zones to Oceana or discuss the changes with local
officials until 1997. 

Former Virginia Beach School Board Chairman Robert Hagans asked top Navy
officials during a meeting in Washington, D.C., in August 1997 why local
leaders were not notified sooner about the change. 

Alan F. Zusman, deputy director of base development at the Naval
Facilities Engineering Command, would later write in an e-mail: ``We tap
danced around this issue, saying we had provided updates through our
master plans which are public documents and probably reside in some
library in Va. Beach somewhere.'' 

Another internal memorandum shows the Navy was prepared for more
questions. 

``Over the past 10 years, how could Navy officials at NAS Oceana conduct
land-use discussions with local authorities when they were aware
(accident potential zone) criteria had changed, but had not been
calculated for their air station?'' a Navy talking points memo from the
late 1990s asks. 

The Navy answered its own question in the same document. 

``We have no information that Navy officials at Oceana were aware that
the (accident potential zone) criteria had changed. Significantly, if
they had, it would have been a useful tool to point out incompatible
development,'' the memo states. 

Today, Oceana is encircled by ever increasing residential and commercial
development. A decade ago, development surrounded the air station on
three sides. Now the base is nearly surrounded. 

Thousands of people who moved into Virginia Beach during the 1990s have
made their homes in an area of high levels of military aircraft noise, a
computer-assisted analysis by The Virginian-Pilot shows. 

There is no record on file, with the city or the Navy, showing that the
Navy opposed the construction of Hidden Oaks despite its proximity to
two of Oceana's main runways and the proposed development's significant
exposure to aircraft noise. 

In addition to the FAA advisory, Navy and Department of Housing and
Urban Development guidelines list residential development in the 70- to
75-decibel noise zone -- the zone Hidden Oaks and neighboring Landstown
Lakes were located when they were approved -- as ``strongly
discouraged'' and ``normally unacceptable.'' 

``It's amazing they let them build here,'' said Litton, who moved into
the new neighborhood in January 1998. 

While the Navy normally protests such developments, the service stresses
that land-use recommendations it makes are not binding. ``Local
governments alone are responsible for regulating land use,'' a handout
from the Navy Air Installations Compatible Use Zones program declares. 

Back in Hidden Oaks, the Littons' neighbor across the street has already
packed up the 3 1/2 -year-old house he had built. He moved to Pungo with
his wife and three young children. The main reason the former Marine
left: To escape the piercing screams caused by dozens of Navy jets
taking off or landing. 

Around the bend, another Hidden Oaks resident, Liz Dennis, is still
getting settled in the $218,000 house she and her family moved into in
June after relocating from California. Dennis, a Realtor in the San
Francisco Bay area, said she and her husband were told the home was in
the highest noise zone around the air base. 

But the 41-year-old mother said she was not prepared for the level of
noise. Nor was she prepared to learn that pilots flying at tree-top
level over her home are training, or that her 3-year-old house is in an
aircraft accident potential zone. 

``The noise can be deafening,'' said Dennis, the mother of two children,
ages 6 and 2. ``I can almost live with the noise, but I do have an
anxiety about a crash. If I had known this was a crash zone, I probably
would not have bought this house.'' 

A large part of Hidden Oaks and Landstown Lakes were moved into a crash
zone and the highest noise zone when the Navy decided to relocate nine
F/A-18 squadrons to Oceana in mid-1998. 

The Virginia Beach Comprehensive Plan and local zoning policies in place
since 1994 recommend against allowing residential development in
accident potential zones and noise zones louder than 75 decibels. 

Still, city leaders have continued to allow residential development in
two other noise zones where aircraft noise averages 65 to 75 decibels. 

Under existing law, anyone with land already zoned for residential
development, even if it is in an accident potential zone, does not need
the city's permission to put houses or apartments there. 

Virginia Beach's long-term road map for growth, its Comprehensive Plan,
has since 1979 designated much of the land south of the air base as
ready for homes. Based on this plan, hundreds of acres of farmland south
of the base were rezoned for developers from agricultural to residential
by the City Council. 

The area comprises thousands of acres between General Booth Boulevard on
the east and Holland Road on the west, and Dam Neck Road on the north to
Sandbridge Road on the south. 

This patch of land recorded the highest growth rate -- more than 25
percent -- in the city during the 1990s, according to U.S. Census data.
That growth has helped the city's population swell 62 percent, rising
from 262,199 in 1980 to 425,257 by last year. At the same time, Navy
records show that air operations at Oceana Naval Air Station have
increased by at least 27 percent. 

Capt. William C. ``Skip'' Zobel, Oceana's commanding officer, said the
city and the Navy have worked well together in reaching a middle ground
on controlling land use and jet noise around base during his two-year
tenure. 

But Zobel, who will hand over command this month, agrees that
residential development managed to close in around the base during the
past decade. 

``I've seen the southern end around the base build up,'' said Zobel, a
longtime Beach resident. ``There is not a whole lot of buffer for Runway
5.'' 

Virginia Beach Planning Director Robert Scott said planning for the past
20 years has been guided by numerous factors, including the Navy's 1978
Air Installations Compatible Use Zones noise and accident potential
zones. 

``These were the policies that we were urged to adopt and follow by the
Navy. Those are the policies we did adopt and, by and large, follow,''
Scott said. 

It is those policies which have permitted residential development in
places with significant aircraft noise and increased the ranks of
noise-weary residents willing to challenge the military's presence in
court. Since April, thousands of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake
homeowners have signed up to join a federal ``inverse condemnation''
lawsuit, claiming that louder Navy jets and increased operations have
lessened their quality of life and property values without compensation.
A top Navy admiral testified before Congress that the lawsuit could cost
taxpayers $500 million or more. 

Neither the Littons nor the Dennises have joined the suit. 

Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf, former Rep. Owen Pickett and Rep. Edward L.
Schrock have warned that too many complaints about Oceana's operations
could force the Navy to close the base, and cost the region more than
$1.2 billion in economic benefits during the next decade. 

``Common sense would sort of tell you the military doesn't really want
to be in a place where there is friction, particularly substantial
friction, about their operations,'' Pickett said. 

Navy and political leaders also worry that the retention, training and
readiness of Navy pilots and air crews could be adversely affected if
newer Super Hornet strike-fighters are not based at Oceana. The
infrastructure at Oceana Naval Air Station exists at no other military
air base on the East Coast. 

Adm. William J. Fallon, vice chief of naval operations, and Adm. James
F. Amerault, deputy chief of naval operations, also informed Congress
this year that the problem is expected to get worse as communities grow,
tactical fighter aircraft get louder and the need for larger military
aircraft training ranges increases. 

``Encroachment is often gradual and can go unnoticed, but its impacts
cumulatively erode our ability to deploy combat-ready sailors and
Marines,'' Amerault told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March. 

Such high-level concerns raise a question that has lingered for decades:
How does a growing suburban city and one of the military's largest jet
bases continue to coexist? 

It is a question top Navy leaders will contemplate during the next year
as they decide whether to locate all or some of 164 new F/A-18 E and F
Super Hornets at Oceana starting in 2004. The fighters would replace
older and quieter F-14 Tomcat strike-fighters. 

It is a question Beach leaders and residents will consider beginning
this month during the first of nine public meetings to revise and update
the city's comprehensive plan, the community's road map for the future.
The City Council will have the final say about what will change or stay
the same. 

The process coincides with the Navy scheduled release of an
environmental impact statement on the possible siting of the Super
Hornet. 

In November 1998, the City Council chose to adopt revisions to the
city's comprehensive plan without considering added noise and accident
potential zones revealed two months earlier in the Navy's draft
environmental impact study on the Hornet relocation. 

``I don't think the maps were looked at as closely last time as they
need to be looked at this time,'' said Ronald Ripley, a private
developer and Beach planning commission member. 

``We're going to take a serious look at this issue,'' said Thomas C.
Pauls, the Beach's comprehensive plan coordinator. ``The balance is the
difficult part. The best we can do is take the information from the
upcoming (Navy environmental impact statement) and develop a plan to
protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.'' 

In the meantime, Bruce Litton and his neighbors in Hidden Oaks weigh
their options and pray for peace of mind. 

With a second baby due in October, the Littons are not certain they will
stay. 

``I love this house,'' Litton said. ``Without a doubt, this was our
dream house. The last thing I want to do is leave. Unfortunately it
looks more and more like we are going have to leave it.''

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