Judge Says East Hampton Town Cannot 'Close' Airport or Limit Flights

A state judge last week ruled that East Hampton Town cannot close East Hampton Airport and reclassify it as a private airport — even though the FAA has already reclassified and renamed it — handing a sweeping victory, at least initially, to aviators.

It’s a victory as well for residents of Montauk who had feared that closing or limiting flights to East Hampton would mean more noise over their hamlet.

State Supreme Court Justice Paul J. Baisley issued a ruling on October 19 siding with three separate groups of plaintiffs who had filed lawsuits against the town in May seeking to stop plans to temporarily close the airport so that it could be reclassified upon reopening as private, and new restrictions on flights to and from the airport could be imposed.

Baisley said the town’s proposal did not adhere to either federal aviation statutes, which preclude it from restricting flights outside of a federal process, nor with the New York State review law, because the main analysis of the impacts of the proposal would not take place until after the action had been taken.

“By planning on conducting its [environmental impact statement] after the town closes the airport, the town has acted both beyond its legal ability and in an arbitrary and capricious manner,” Baisley wrote in what was a relatively short decision considering the complexity of the case — just seven pages, mostly of background on the circuitous legal path the town has followed since 2015 in trying to rein in airport noise.

As to the federal statutes, Baisley relied mainly on a 2016 ruling by a federal court that said the town could not impose flight restrictions on a public airport without following a federally mandated procedure dictated in the Airport Noise and Capacity Act.

“Here, the town’s decision is contrary to federal law, as it fails to comply with ANCA’s procedural requirements for adopting noise and access restrictions affecting stage 2 and stage 3 aircraft,” Baisley wrote. “The town cannot be free to operate as it wishes because the federal statutory limitations apply regardless of whether an airport is subject to grant assurances.”

The town had argued that the circumstances surrounding the more recent proposal to impose restrictions was wholly different than it was in 2016, because of the expiration of strings tied to federal grant money in the early 2000s that had prevented the town from closing the airport entirely. Baisley said the expiration of the grants should not have any bearing on the need to comply with federal regulations.

The decision was quickly celebrated by the plaintiffs.

“The coalition is extremely gratified that the State Supreme Court judge recognized the significant harm that closing East Hampton Airport would cause throughout the East End of Long Island,” said Gary Herman, the founder of the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, one of the lead plaintiffs in the cases — the others being the charter flight booking company Blade Air Mobility and a consortium of hangar owners at the airport.

“We have been saying all along that the town was ignoring important environmental and aviation statutes designed to avoid rash decision-making when it comes to closing a long-established and vital public airport. We remain willing to work with the town, in accordance with law, on a common sense approach to addressing any legitimate concerns surrounding the operation of the airport. That conversation, however, must also include a discussion of the immediate need for the town to undertake critical maintenance and repair measures at the airport.”

Steve Russo, the attorney who represented Herman’s group in the case said that the judge had struck to the heart of the town’s attempt to get around federal law.

“The court properly recognized that you cannot close the airport and assess its adverse environmental impacts afterward,” Russo said in a statement to The Press on Wednesday, October 19. “We also agree that the town’s scheme to close its public airport to only reopen it days later was an unlawful attempt to evade prior federal court decisions and the requirements of the federal Airport Noise and Capacity Act.”

Last winter, the Town Board announced its plans to close the airport for a brief period — initially, three days at the start of March, then just 33 hours in mid-May — and then reopen it as a private airport.

Recasting the airport as a legally new, private facility would allow the town to set whatever usage limitations it saw fit, the town’s attorneys had advised the Town Board after consulting with the FAA.

The town proposed a package of “prior permission required,” or PPR, restrictions that set strict curfews on flights and limited commercial aircraft and especially loud aircraft like helicopters to just one flight per day per aircraft.

The town’s consultants said the limitations could cut air traffic to the airport by as much as 40 percent, targeting the most bothersome flights, but were also more liberal than the proposals in 2015 and were a reasonable compromise conceived after months of public discussions with airport users and residents.

Cognizant of the potential for simply shifting that traffic to other airports and creating new noise issues in the communities surrounding them, especially Montauk, the town had planned to study the changes in flight patterns around all of the region’s airfields throughout the summer and fall and issue its assessment of the impact of the new limitations over this coming winter.

Restrictions could be loosened or tightened according to the impacts seen at East Hampton Airport or at other airports in the region, so as not to simply shift the problem of noise to other communities, the town said.

But Baisley derailed those plans a little more than 24 hours before the temporary closure was to start, issuing a temporary restraining order barring the town from moving forward with its plans as he considered the broader arguments that culminated with last week’s ruling.

“The Suffolk County Supreme Court issued a decision today granting the request of certain aviation interests to enjoin the Town of East Hampton from ‘deactivating or closing HTO Airport,’” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last Wednesday. “The Town Board is assessing what impact the court’s ruling may have, and assessing its legal options. The Town Board remains committed to finding a resolution that is balanced and in the interest of the community.”

At a meeting of the Town Board on Thursday, October 20, the supervisor said that the town had seen its approach as a more common sense one than trying to forecast what the impacts of closing the airport would be on air traffic based on hypotheticals.

“We initially had proposed doing our … review to assess the PPR regulation in real time so we could have actual data instead of just hypothetical data,” Van Scoyoc said. “Apparently, the court wants us to just go forward with hypothetical data.”

Kathryn Slye, the vice president of the East Hampton Aviation Association, a pilot advocacy organization — whose longtime president, Kent Feuerring, was killed in a plane crash in Three Mile Harbor just two weeks ago — said she hoped the decision would bring the town and pilots together to work out a way to ease the noise impacts of the airport through voluntary measures.

“During this difficult time in our local aviation community, EHAA is heartened by the court’s decision today that the airport must remain open,” she said in a message. “Perhaps this [is] the perfect opportunity for everyone on all sides of this issue to come together in the spirit of what Kent Feuerring was always trying to accomplish and work collectively toward, the goal of having a reasonably controlled airport that is allowed to safely operate and benefit our community while effectively mitigating any noise and environmental impacts.”

Town officials have noted repeatedly in the last year that they had tried to get pilots groups and aviation industry representatives to come to the table to come up with reasonable limitations for years, to no avail. This week, the town pledged to press forward with its mission to reduce noise impacts on residents through whatever means possible.

Van Scoyoc would not comment on whether the town and its attorneys are of the belief that the ruling does not preclude a permanent closure of the airport — something lawmakers have said is on the table if reasonable restrictions cannot be achieved.

“We’ll be working with outside council to provide the relief the community deserves,” Van Scoyoc said. “You should be hearing more from us very soon.”