A proposal for tighter city controls on any expansion or addition to the runway or other facilities at McClellan-Palomar Airport received support last week from the Carlsbad Planning Commission. The commission voted 6-1 to recommend the Carlsbad City Council approve the changes, with Commissioner Peter Merz opposed. The council is set to consider the issue Nov. 19. Merz said he tends to agree with San Diego County, owner of the general aviation airport, that changes within the airport’s existing boundaries are allowed under a conditional use permit issued years ago by the city. The city’s Community Development Department and the local group Citizens for a Friendly Airport say any runway changes in particular should require a new or amended permit, which the City Council would have to approve. “That seems to be the key point of this entire thing,” Mertz said. The proposal includes a package of amendments to the city’s general plan, zoning ordinance and local coastal plan. The changes also would prohibit the county from acquiring any additional property for airport-related uses outside the airport’s existing boundaries. County officials have said the changes could interfere with improvements needed to make the airport more safe for its users, which are mostly private and corporate aircraft. “The county believes the city may inadvertently restrict certain safety improvements approved by the county Board of Supervisors,” states a July 8 letter to the city from William P. Morgan, the county’s interim director of public works. “These improvements include the extension of the existing runway, the installation of an engineered material arresting system (to stop planes that overshoot the runway), and the acquisition of future runway protection zones,” Morgan said. Lengthening the airport’s only runway by a few hundred feet is in the county’s long-term plans. However, there is no funding for construction or the additional engineering and design work needed for that. Carlsbad’s airport opened in 1959, when it was relocated there from Del Mar to accommodate construction of Interstate 5. At the time, the site was outside Carlsbad in the county and relatively unpopulated. Carlsbad annexed the airport and surrounding property in 1978, and approved the airport’s conditional use permit in 1980. The city and the county have been feuding over the airport since at least the 1980s. In 1984, the City Council adopted a resolution opposing any expansion, and it has adopted other similar resolutions since then. Residents strongly supported the city’s newest proposal. Their biggest concern has long been noise. “My neighbors and I are extremely disappointed and frustrated with the county and how they are operating the airport,” said Frank Sung, a 21-year Carlsbad resident representing 186 homes in the Mariner’s Point homeowners association. “We have airplanes flying over our homes, our schools and parks all hours of the day and night,” Sung said. “The single-engine planes are low and loud and dangerous … then you have the large jets who are screaming over our rooftops … right over the tennis courts and the paddleball courts at Poinsettia Park.” Another sore point with residents is that some pilots fail to follow the airport’s voluntary noise abatement procedures, which specify a flight pattern to avoid residential areas, and the voluntary quiet hours from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Citizens for a Friendly Airport President Vickey Syage urged approval. “This has been a well thought-out, well-vetted, herculean effort,” Syage told the commission. “Tonight is the culmination of seven years of work.” Most of the commissioners agreed. “This is a very complicated issue and a controversy that goes back not just a few years, but for decades,” said Commissioner Joe Stine, adding that there has been litigation before and there could be again. A conditional use permit is an opportunity to balance the potential negative and positive effects of the airport, he said, in support of the proposed changes. The rules in the proposal are “equal, fair and balanced,” Stine said. “I would not say in any way that the odds are tilted against the county,” he said. “We have a neutral process.” Aside from zoning, Carlsbad has little control over the airport. Operations on the ground are handled by the county, and flight activities are the responsibility of the Federal Aviation Administration.