Strongsville Officials Request Meeting on Proposed Flight Paths at CLE

THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER – Strongsville officials want to know how changing flight patterns at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport will affect residents and their quality of life.

Strongsville City Council has requested a community meeting with representatives from the airport and the Federal Aviation Administration to review and discuss the proposed changes, scheduled to start in spring 2018. So far, a date for the meeting has not been set.

“We felt it would be proactive to talk to them about the impact the flight paths might have on our community,” Law Director Neal Jamison said.

“It might not affect us at all,” Jamison said. “We’re close to the airport, but not right next to it. We have some flight paths over our town but to my knowledge, there have been no complaints of noise, at least not in the year and a half I’ve been in Strongsville.”

As part of its Cleveland/Detroit Metroplex Project, the FAA is preparing to convert Hopkins from a ground-based navigation system to a satellite-based navigation system. This means that air-traffic controllers will use satellites instead of radar to direct aircraft in and out of Cleveland. In the process, they say they will create more efficient routes.

The FAA is seeking public input from those who might be impacted by aviation noise and increased traffic as it draws new flight paths around Cleveland Hopkins.

Cleveland/Detroit Metroplex Project, part of the FAA’s NextGen initiative, aims to enhance safety and improve efficiency throughout the nation’s airspace. Once NextGen is implemented, aircraft in the Cleveland-Detroit region are projected to use 3.4 million fewer gallons of fuel a year, reducing carbon emissions by 28.9 thousand metric tons a year, leading to savings of about $9.7 million annually.

The FAA has been scheduling community meetings to hear concerns from residents living near the airport about noise, air traffic and other issues related to the NextGen. In September 2016, both Middleburg Heights and Fairview Park hosted meetings.

Fairview Park Mayor Eileen Ann Patton said the Fairview Park meeting was well-attended by residents in all Westshore Council of Governments communities, including Bay Village, Lakewood, North Olmsted, Rocky River and Westlake.

In October 2016, Brook Park requested a community meeting, but it’s not clear whether a meeting has been scheduled. In February, Fred Szabo, assistant director of the department of port control at the airport, told Brook Park City Council that the FAA is trying to minimize the impact of new flight paths on residents, saying planes will fly more over highways than homes.

In May, an FAA representative, speaking to Middleburg Heights City Council, said the new flight paths would have a “slightly positive” effect on Middleburg Heights, as some air traffic moves away from that city.

Jamison said the city of Cleveland contacted him immediately after Strongsville, in September, requested a community meeting.

“They said the FAA would reach out to us in the near future but we haven’t heard anything yet,” Jamison told cleveland.com Friday.

via – Strongsville requests public meeting on new flight paths at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport