Riviera Homeowners Association

We invite concerned neighbors to attend a meeting that has been called by Shant Megerdichian, General Services Director for the City of Torrance, Michelle Ramirez at Community Development (which runs the Noise Abatement Program), other administrators from the City, and the owners/directors of Sling Aircraft Academy, the largest flight training school at Torrance airport (Zamperini Field).

The purpose of this meeting is to ask if Homeowner Associations and residents will accept an offer from Sling to voluntarily not use the southern runway for training flights.   They have been doing this for two weeks now.  The sticking point is that Sling refuses to sign a written contract or lease agreement on any action.

If they refuse to sign an agreement in writing, they are not legally bound to follow that rule and it will be impossible to enforce.  The past activities of Sling pilots indicate that they are interested in doing what they want to do, and they are not bothered if they disturb nearby Torrance residents. Still, we can comment on their ideas.

Here is what Sling is proposing and what concerned residents are proposing:  

         Sling: 

• South runway not used for flight training.

• South runway only used for departure and return. Upon Departure, aircraft will only turn left after the shoreline. 

• Flight Schools will send scheduled groups of training flights to OTHER Airports.

• Flight Schools will stagger flights to avoid having planes fly all at once.

Residents of South Torrance and the Hollywood Riviera are proposing:

• Written agreements, ie., permits, leases, or contracts.

• Sling to agree to fly within ½ mile of the airport on the north side, to avoid impacting residential areas (New Horizons, Hickory).

• If the FAA is involved, the control tower needs to stop approving requests to train on the south side.

• Ability to see if current leases or permits already require compliance with the Municipal Code sections limiting operations, and if environmental impacts were considered.

• Stop using leaded fuel by a certain date.

The day after this noise abatement meeting, Feb. 7^th is the City Council meeting.  We want to see what the City Council comes back with regarding other options such as landing fees, identifying the airport as a public nuisance, enforcing no early left turns, installing more noise monitors  on the south side away from the airport.  Before we can talk further with the flight schools, we want to know what the City intends to do. 

If you haven’t seen it, please watch the city council meeting on Jan. 24, Item 9B ,when  council filed the minutes of the Transportation Committee meeting.  Residents came forward and told how they were severely affected by airport noise in their homes.  Afterward, the council asked that the staff investigate how to declare the Torrance Airport a Public Nuisance. Wow!!

See you on the 6^th or 7 ^th     … or Feb 9^th (Airport Commission Meeting)

Decorative Succulents

Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. at El Retiro Library

Succulents are attractive resilient plants that thrive both indoors and outside with limited water. Join us to decorate a pot and then plant your own succulent to take home. Registration is required and limited to 20 participants. Please call the El Retiro Library at 310-375-0922 to register.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Important Noise Abatement Meeting, 2/6/23 and City Council Meeting 2/7/23

Are you still frustrated by airport noise?  Us, too. 

Once again, we are asking you to come to City Council to urge the Council to consider the needs of residents over pilots.  The meeting is Tuesday, January 24, Item 9B at City Hall at 6:30.  Help us keep our demands consistent by all of us asking for the same things: 

1. Enforce the no-early-left-turn rule as written in the Municipal Code, including training flights, as intended.
2. Close and begin removing the south runway.
3. Recommend that pilots using the north runway fly as close as possible to the airport and avoid flying over residential areas.
4. Evaluate potential environmental impacts in accordance with CEQA before approving or renewing a permit/lease to any flight training school.  

These are steps that the City, which owns the airport, can easily take that will reduce airport traffic over the entire City.  

The length of time that it has taken the City to take steps to reduce noise, and the lack of transparency of City Staff is unacceptable.   Read the minutes of the Transportation Committee meeting below, which was promised to be posted publicly but wasn’t, note the amount of time and negotiations spent with pilots, while residents were not invited or consulted, and you’ll be even angrier!  The City staff is snubbing the thousands of residents who are suffering from constant diving and climbing planes, while catering to a few pilots.

Please come and speak at the meeting!!  There are Council members who will listen. City Council makes the final decisions on the airport management.

Thank you! 
Your Riviera Homeowners Association

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on City Council Takes Steps On Airport Noise, Jan 24

Reminder that we will be having an In-Person Live General meeting tomorrow evening at Riviera United Methodist Church at 7PM. This will be our first “Live” meeting since Covid. Doors will open at 6:30. It will be great to see all of you from the community attend.

Councilman Mike Griffiths will be speaking about the new state laws that will reduce local control of planning and construction. He is opposed to them and will present his plan of action. See previous post for details.

If you haven’t renewed your RHA membership, please bring your checkbook tomorrow night. You can always renew via this website as well. We cannot exist without your support.

See you tomorrow!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on RHA General Meeting tomorrow, Jan 17, 7PM

GUEST SPEAKER: TORRANCE CITY COUNCILMAN MIKE GRIFFITHS

CAN THE HILLSIDE OVERLAY SURVIVE THE NEW STATE LAWS?

RIVIERA HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION GENERAL MEETING – LIVE! –IN PERSON!

TUESDAY JANUARY 17, 7 PM AT THE RIVIERA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH,

375 PALOS VERDES BLVD.  REDONDO BEACH.  DOORS OPEN 6:30 PM.

Councilman Mike Griffiths has been vigorously opposing new state laws that will reduce local control of planning and construction.  He wrote a resolution opposing these new laws to the State Legislature and the Governor, then had the City of Torrance and dozens of other cities send the resolution two years ago.   He and volunteers contacted hundreds of elected city officials all over the state who sent individual letters opposing the loss of local control.  He is now working with an organization to get a voter initiative on the 2024 ballot to reverse these laws. 

The new ADU laws AB2221 and SB 897 will allow the City to fast track ADU construction, and will permit 2-story ADU’s to be constructed on any lot, even in the Hillside Overlay, regardless of view, light, air and privacy impact.

He will give advice and strategies for dealing with these State mandates.

Find out what you need to know and what you can do!

This program will be recorded for later viewing on our website.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on LIVE IN PERSON! RHA GENERAL MEETING 1/17 AT RIVIERA UNITED METHODIST, 7PM

Please mark your calendars if you haven’t already: The Torrance City Council’s Transportation Committee will meet this Wednesday, December 14^th 2022, at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 3031 Torrance Blvd. Even if you prefer not to speak, your presence will help to keep the pressure on. This is the link to the agenda:

•  https://www.torranceca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/78941 

Please plan on also sending an email. Even if you are speaking, your time will be limited, but the length of your email is your choice. We don’t know whether Chair Aurelio Mattucci will give speakers one or two minutes. The other two Transportation Committee members are Bridgett Lewis and Jon Kaji.

Send your email to the following:  CityCouncil@torranceca.gov,  CouncilMeetingPublicComment@torranceca.gov,  achaparyan@torranceca.gov,  psullivan@torranceca.gov.

In the subject line, write “Dec. 14 Airport Committee Meeting.” In the text of the email, address it to the three committee members. Even though the other four Councilmembers aren’t part of the committee, we want them to know what we are thinking because, in the end, they will be making all the final decisions in case the committee submits a flawed report.

Earlier, we asked you to talk about the airport’s negative impact on your lives. We won that argument. Now we have to keep the Council on track to effectively end the issues that we are having.

The No. 1 point that we need to focus on: Enforce the Municipal Code for all flights. Reportedly, the City has started enforcing it for non-flight-training flights, but has allowed the pilot schools to not follow the code. That needs to stop.

The following is an assessment from our leadership team Co-Chair Richard Root. It has material that you should feel free to use in your comments:

The agenda item states the Committee will Discuss Options for Landing Fees and Reduction of Aircraft Operations at Torrance Municipal Airport and specifically:

• 1) Reducing allowable flights by restricting training flights and prohibiting flights from outside agencies;
• 2) Limiting or prohibiting use of the south runway; and
• 3) Changing flight school training hours by amending the Torrance Municipal Code (TMC).

These measures would be steps in the right direction, but they don’t go far enough and they would require amending the Municipal Code to establish new laws. This is something federal law may not permit. Doing so could jeopardize the City’s ability to enforce its long-standing grandfathered Code provisions.

To adequately address the problems, in addition to or in place of the above, the City should also consider the following options:

1.     Enforce No-Left-Turn law for all planes that turn left under 1,500 feet, including training in south pattern, as currently provided in the City’s Code.

2.    Close and remove the south runway, which would permanently reduce early left turns over rising terrain south of the airport and limit the airport’s overall capacity for operations.

3.    Apply landing fees to all users, including aircraft based at the airport. The City may be precluded legally from adopting landing fees for noise abatement, especially if they discriminate between based and transient aircraft. Instead, the fees should be for revenue generation and applied to all users, including aircraft based at the airport.

4.    Renegotiate leases and permits to condition them on compliance with all City noise abatement requirements and recommendations. Failure to comply should be grounds for termination of the lease/permit, if legally permissible.

5    Deny leases or permits to flight training schools. Do not approve any future permits and leases, and do not renew any existing permits and leases. In the meantime, recommend that pilots training in north pattern remain over commercial/industrial areas, not residential areas north of 235^th Street.

6.    Add noise monitors to fill gaps between monitors on the west and east sides of the airport for more effective enforcement of the City’s existing Code.

7.    Enforce noise violations according to existing grandfathered TMC Section 51.7.3 and immediately ban any aircraft after its third noise violation, instead of taking them to prolonged hearing boards.

8.    Amend the Code to add progressive monetary fines for the first and second violations, instead of only sending a written Notice of Violation. (Only if legally permissible without jeopardizing the City’s grandfathered laws.)

9.    Ban the sale of leaded fuel at the airport within the next year to help stop the spread of lead over homes, schools, and throughout the entire community. 

The City should consider all of the above options. It will take multiple combined actions to permanently resolve all the problems and federal law may prevent the City from implementing some of the above actions. If so, the problem may not be resolved. In that case, the City should consider closing and reopening as a private airport with legal authority to adopt its own noise abatement laws not pre-empted by federal law.

Questions or comments may also be directed to president@HollywoodRiviera.org

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Airport Noise, Pollution Decisions up for discussion December 14