[S]OUTH BURLINGTON — Thirty-nine homeowners with property close to the Burlington International Airport will have one final opportunity to take buyouts from the airport.
On Monday, the Burlington City Council approved a $14 million Federal Aviation Administration grant for home buyouts. Since the 1990s, the FAA has partnered with the state and Burlington, which owns the airport, to buy more than 100 properties most affected by airport noise.
Officials from South Burlington, Burlington and the airport have agreed to move away from home buyouts as a noise mitigation solution, because the residential properties surrounding the airport comprise an important part of the low-income housing stock for the region.
Instead, Burlington International Airport Aviation Director Gene Richards says the airport plans to start a noise mitigation program that relies on insulating homes to reduce the impact of noise. However, the FAA has said that before the program can begin, the airport must offer a final round of buyouts, Richards said.
To that end, Burlington also approved a $455,000 FAA grant Monday that Richards and his staff will use to develop the home improvement noise mitigation program.
“For the people who do want to live here, it will help us help them invest in their homes,” Richards said of the program.
The airport recently updated its noise exposure map for the first time since 2006, and some affected residents have expressed frustration that the new map, which will be used to determine who is eligible for mitigation money, doesn’t account for the planned arrival of F-35 fighter jets.
The F-35 is expected to be louder than the current fleet of F-16s, and the planes are slated to arrive in the fall of 2019, according to the Vermont Air National Guard. The new noise exposure maps that will be used to determine eligibility for the soundproofing measures are expected to remain in place until at least 2020.
“I have made a personal commitment to the community that a year after those jets arrive, there will be a new study,” Richards said.
Initiating the new study is contingent on the FAA approving his application, which Richards acknowledged may take longer than a year, but he said there will absolutely be another sound survey to account for F-35 noise.
Airport officials will be in touch with eligible homeowners about the voluntary buyouts of properties on Airport Parkway, Delaware Street, Dumont Ave, Kirby Road, Ledoux Terrace, Lily Lane, S. Henry Court, Shamrock Road and White Street.
Airport officials hope to have all home purchases in this final round of buyouts completed in the next 2½ years.
The airport does not have any signed contracts with homeowners, and no appraisals have been conducted on the eligible properties, so the total cost if every eligible homeowner decides to sell of $15.5 million is an estimate, officials said.
The feds will cover 90 percent of the buyout program’s cost, with 6 percent, or $933,000, coming from the state, and Burlington putting up the remaining 4 percent, or $622,000.
The same federal, state and local split applies to the $455,000 study grant for the new home insulation program.
