In September 2018, a group of residents from the Pine Shadows development on the edge of Cottonwood and Clarkdale showed up to a meeting of the Cottonwood Airport Commission, complaining that the airport had had a noticeable uptick in noise.
Their complaints have continued for most of the past year, leading to the commission developing a Noise Action Plan along with city employees.
On Aug. 13, Cottonwood Municipal Airport’s Special Projects Manager Morgan Scott presented that plan to the Cottonwood City Council. The meeting was a work session, and therefore the council did not vote on the plan, but rather discussed the implementation of the plan, already approved by the airport commission on June 26, with Scott.
Scott started by acknowledging that recent changes had led to airport noise complaints in higher numbers than before, starting in March of 2018.
“It’s interesting to note that prior to 2018, all documented airport noise complaints came from south of the airport, mostly from the Verde Village Unit 8 area,” Scott noted, saying that complaints had now been coming from all over the area near the airport.
Scott attributed the increased complaints to higher traffic due to a good economy, and the increased noise from bush pilots at nearby flight schools using Cottonwood’s airstrip, which he said tend to be louder.
According to Scott, Federal Aviation Administration regulations require the airport to be open for flight school training, so the city cannot seek to limit traffic. Ideas such as limiting the hours of flight were nixed due to worries that it would only lead to higher congestion during the times that flights came in and out of the airport.
Scott presented the following Noise Action Plan at the Aug. 13 meeting:
- Provide guidelines for pilots who wish to fly with as little impact as possible.
- Help prevent future non-compatible growth around the airport.
- Increase the aware- ness of residents looking to locate near the airport.
Scott said that conversations with local flight schools had been amicable, and that pilots seemed willing to do what they could to help if it could be done easily. The plan advocates for higher altitudes when possible. One of those changes would be to require pilots to take off from the end of
the runway, rather than in the middle, in the hopes of moving planes away from residential areas. Scott also discussed the potential for a Displaced Threshold to the South — an airport extension that gives more room for takeoff — and new Fixed Base Operator — a private organization allowed to run business on the airport — in Cottonwood, which could help coordination with pilots in the air.
“It’s been years since Cottonwood has had people in the field who can actually talk to pilots or communicate with pilots,” Scott said. “That FBO is going to be a huge help in assistance with this.”
The Cottonwood City Council expressed support for Scott’s plan, while conceding that the city’s ability to lower noise in the area is quite limited.
“I think this represents a very fair and balanced approach to doing the best we can to mitigate noise at an airport we have very limited control over. I believe our hands are fairly tied in terms of what we can do there,” Mayor Tim Elinski said. “This is time and again the story of airports when development starts to encircle them. This airport’s been here for 80-plus years. Nobody had a crystal ball back in the ’40s. I’m sure they could not have imagined development would have encroached the way it has.”
Some of those who had complained about noise continued to express dissatisfaction with the response from the city.
“I sincerely hope that council members have the vision and the conscience to direct and guide for the interest of the community that lives here, and not the multiple nonresident pilots that fly in and out of Cottonwood airport without contribution to the citizens or airport maintenance,” resident Lynn Howard said. She took umbrage especially at early morning flights, which she said had been a serious problem.
Councilman Doug Hulse on the other hand expressed frustration at some of the complaints, arguing that noise should be expected for anyone who chooses to live near the airport.
“Take into account your responsibility when you bought your home,” Hulse said. “If you love your home like I do, you don’t want to move and you find the airport really doesn’t bother you. I agree that we need to try to work with you, but you need to understand, you had some responsibility as well as the city and the airport.”
