It would appear that some New Smyrna Beach residents want it both ways. First they wanted to take advantage of the depressed real estate prices that pertain to property close to the New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport when they bought their property. Now, they want to do away with the airport so that nasty noise will go away and their property values will go up.
No one can blame residents if they dislike the sound of airplane engines. However, the airport was built in World War II to train the “greatest generation” how to fly to protect the country from the Japanese and Germans.
It has been here way before the houses were built. Furthermore, the airport is a cash cow for the city. It takes in $756,000 in operating revenues and $1.05 million in grants while creating 100 local jobs.
Certainly, there are some cost effective measures that can be made to reduce the noise such as having the planes adhere to flight paths that are minimally annoying to the population as long as it is consistent with flight safety.
“Buzzing” residential neighborhoods is out. However, most of these moves have no doubt already been made.
New Smyrna Mayor Sally Mackay and City Manager John Hagood both told 100 residents a week ago Saturday that they would look into suggestions for developing a landing strip toward the center of the county for use by flight schools.
This leaves the problem of who is going to pay for it and all kinds of safety issues such as tower locations and proximity of emergency services.
I would suggest several things which will either settle the financial question or the complaining.
Suggestion No. 1 is to institute a ”Save Our Homes From Noise Tax” on the people near the airport.
The proceeds would be earmarked for building and maintaining a new landing strip somewhere in the middle of the county.
Just proposing such a tax might help the residents rediscover their love of airplanes and obviate the need for action.
Suggestion No. 2 would be to simultaneously close the airport and reduce the city payroll enough to pay for the lost revenue and the costs of closing the airport.
Probably what will happen is next to nothing, as it should be. The nearby residents will have to learn to love the airplanes.