Munger

Morning All,

Does anyone know if an Airport or the decommissioning of a licensed airfield to unlicensed has an influence on the 'City' status of a town?

Hope you are all well!

One of the Lismore City councilors has made the following statement in an email:

"... There is much empathy with the residents affected by the noise of the touch and go and circuit training and I believe some want the airport closed as aviation is a significant user of fossil fuels."

This prompted me to have a look at the statistics and I was able to find some verifiable 2018 figures: Avgas was 0.15% of the total Road/Aviation fuel consumption in Skippiestan. Yes, Turbine Fuel was 22%, which admittedly, is a pretty significant figure...

Yet again, when the emotions run high, context and facts are obfuscated.

Nice to see:

https://aopa.com.au/lismore-aviators-call-on-aopa-australia-for-help-facing-unsustainable-increases-in-airport-fees/

Hope it will have some results!

A

2 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

suddenly information appears in publc

I see your point. Unfortunately, us YLIS Aviators were too busy committing aviation until we were made aware of the March 2021 Draft Budget proposal...now it seem that every day we find stuff that has been out in the community for a while, creating this emotional anti-aircraft noise storm...

Counter attack by governance seems like a really good strategy into the future! Thank you for putting us wise to it, and I hope this will help others too in future.

7 minutes ago, Ironpot said:

Maybe have a whisper in your MPs ear?

That would be Kevin Hogan MP....just checked out what he is at the moment: Minister for Local Government 🙂

I think he will need to be visited once the Covid restrictions in NSW are lifted....

2 minutes ago, Ironpot said:

Air Services Australia would have been giving you a hard time by now if it hadn't gone away.

...about that: From the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman (https://ano.gov.au/reportsstats/statistics/annual_report_2019_2020/AR2019-2020-attachments.asp)

4 hours ago, Flying Binghi said:

https://stopthesethings.com/2020/08/25/victims-vindicated-farmers-victorious-in-landmark-legal-battle-over-wind-turbine-noise/

What a complex subject! A possible solution would have been to buy up all the land around it, up to the edge of the noise complaints...

In terms of Aircraft noise, I see the biggest difference in having an established noise generator vs a new development. In terms of Lismore, we have substantially less noise than in the 80's and 90's, but the sensitivity to noise has substantially increased, especially by new member of the community who were never exposed to previous levels. All you have to do it look at what happened in the 2017 floods...new business owners in the CBD did not take it serious and post flood suffered the biggest losses.

The Public Health act is definitely something to consider though. If there is already a move against high amenity noise (can be very subjective, as Turboplanner pointed out), then ANY noise generating infrastructure is under thread.

I do agree that sometimes there is ways of mitigating issues, but in my experience with engineering, it's always a compromise. In the case of noise (being subjective) I fear that the compromise will not be logical and shared....God, I have turned into a cynic!

1 minute ago, turboplanner said:

The achilles heel in my argument just yet is the analysis of the local aircraft noise during lockdown

In your opinion, do we want a horizontal distance away from the aircraft or directly under the flight path at full noise take-off passing overhead? (That would be worst case scenario) We can always do a ground cruise run at a horizontal distance away from the aircraft (we know which one is the noisiest that frequents the airport).

16 hours ago, turboplanner said:

This attachment gives you a tool to measure against the 24/7 access to surrounding roads by car.

That is a very interesting document! Is the reduction of noise by distance a known standard?

4 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

The nearby Kamilaroi Highway is getting pretty noisy; time for me to start a petition demanding that it be closed or relocated away from all residential areas…

Diving into the whole aircraft noise winger problem, I found that there is a larger number of articles on the Daily Telegraph about Bruxner Hwy noise.... so you may have a chance....

Evening All,

For all of you who will have to deal with Aircraft Noise Complaints in future, the Australian Standard for this is AS2021-2000 (Acoustics - Aircraft Noise Intrusion -  Building Sitting and Construction).

This will eventually lead you to: https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/industry-info/anefs-and-aneis/

Turns out, this is a rather complex matter!

I'll keep posting interesting things when I find them....

And thank you Turboplanner for showing me the way to find info! 👍

12 hours ago, turboplanner said:

You have a lot of work to do starting with identifying whether anyone else with a business has made any submission or intends to. Someone needs to present about 20 to 40 pages of submission assessing the Planning impacts from these proposals, the main one being it is not going to be recognizable as a working airport if all these plans get up.

I am guessing that the planning portal NSW will have info on what you can submit, 'why you would want to' and how?

Just to clarify the hierarchy of the planning levels: RCAP >> LEP>>Zoning>>DA?

2 hours ago, turboplanner said:

he proposal at the time was just to address the proposed changes in airport fees, which was the item on the agenda at the council meeting. 

I think this was in response to public submission on the upcoming council budget, not the Draft Lismore Regional City Action Plan (RCAP). I did not know this level of planning even exists until turboplanner pointed it out...(Thanks again for your input)...

2 hours ago, turboplanner said:

Draft Regional City Action Plan 2036

https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/lismoreRCAP

Is that the document you are looking at?

1 hour ago, turboplanner said:

tem 2  Airport Industrial Estate [that doesn’t sound very good at all]

Yep, definitely missed some of this, but the Airport Industrial Estate is already in existence (houses the Westpac Rescue helicopter on the Airport side and is only one building wide strip that should never have been build due to the impact on the progression of flood waters in the are (and there is another long story behind how they screwed that one up!). That area is not really a threat to us (well, from a logical hydrology engineering perspective anyway)...coming to think of it, the airport has already been scarified as a flood causeway...wonder if they are thinking of sinking it further for some additional blocks (that would also influence existing infrastructure)....

Investigate the potential of the airport as a training and export facility [non-aviation details follow]

            $1.8 million upgrade of Lismore Regional Airport + $4.4 million ILS, will attract more GA + ag flights + a new runway etc.

That one is just hilarious considering that they bump up the charges to minimize the traffic.....I guess that is the difference between councilor and the professional staff...

Thank you for your effort!

4 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

I think you might have hit the bullseye there. Big changes coming to Lismore. I'll draft up a couple of pages on what I found;  Lismore Regional Airport mentioned about 14 times.

That's awesome! Can you also let me know where you are finding this info, I want to learn how to track it down (pretty positive I will need that skill in future!)

On 22/07/2021 at 8:57 AM, turboplanner said:

Within the Department website there will be Planning Schemes you can download> Search for Shire or City of XXXX planning Scheme

Can you enlighten me what the 'planning Scheme' refers to with reference to the options below? Is it the LEP?

8 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

Not if your Planning status is correct; they can kick and squeal and you don't have to do anything but operate because you have the Zoning to do so.

I would love to have your confidence in the process. So far, we have had one noise winger stir up the councilors (green/labor) and they voted to change the landing fee structure to our disadvantage (admitting it was a plot to lower traffic numbers) and pass a motion to review the airport....all without consultation of the stake holder. When the most active flying school on the field then tried to reason with them, he was told that his own figures are wrong, after a closed session workshop.....and we are also getting the 'we are developing an airport master plan'.

To me, that is a row of BIG red flags that something is seriously wrong...

34 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

1. Why does it say "Noise is an issue for airports?"

Very good point. The wording of contentious issue documents has to be carefully considered. I am not sure that this was done by the council officer who published it. I will get in touch with the airport co-coordinator and suggest an amendment.

8 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Noise is ALWAYS and issue for airports and airstrips.

Totally agree: Been flying for more than 30 years and even had noise complaints while flying a paraglider (glider, not motor)....there is always ONE! Problem is that with social media, that ONE now has the power to bully the many....

...woops! Thanks!

Does anyone have any figures of what it costs a council to introduce a camera landing fee system and running costs?

Thanks Turboplanner. I thought you may have some secrete squirrel sites 🙂

 I found the meeting of the 8th June , but did not find that reference. How did you find that?

While browsing through our councils expansive list of documents, I came across this 'Fly-Neighbourly-Guideline' (see attached PDF).

Fly-Neighbourly-Guideline.pdf

5 hours ago, turboplanner said:

"Noise Abatement Zone"  (below cliff level).

..that will be interesting!

Can I ask how you tracked down that info so quickly?