NE Queens Leaders Getting Close to Forming FAA Roundtable on Airplane Noise

A group of northeast Queens community leaders who have been leading the charge against increased airplane noise over their neighborhoods are getting closer to establishing an aviation roundtable with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Janet McEneaney, a Community Board 11 and founder of Queens Quiet Skies, told Patch that an organizational meeting would be held early this week for community representatives involved in the initiative to form a roundtable with the FAA.

The roundtable would likely include representatives from Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Nassau County and New Jersey.

“We have suggested to the Port Authority and the FAA that we meet with them in November,” McEneaney said. “We suggested some dates, but at that time the government was shut down. The FAA said its staff was furloughed. So, now we’ll have to go back to them with the dates again.”

For more than a year-and-a-half, residents of Bayside and Douglaston have been complaining of constant airplane noise over their communities.

The FAA said the noise stems from a new flight pattern out of LaGuardia Airport.

McEneaney said the first aviation roundtable was founded in California three decades ago and that most major metropolitan areas – with the exception of New York City - had one.

“We’re taking some of the by-laws from the roundtables in San Francisco, Oakland and Chicago because they are all major metro areas with share airspace,” McEneaney said. “But New York is unique because it is not only has shared airspace with three airports, which I don’t think exists anywhere else in the country, but we’re also a gigantic city with boroughs.”

Currently, Queens Quiet Skies members are holding informational meetings for northeast Queens residents throughout the month.

McEneaney said there is not an exact date for the roundtable’s kick off, but she believes it is coming up soon.

“The roundtable is moving forward,” she said. “We have a definite commitment from the FAA and they know they have to do it. It’s a matter of pushing them to make sure we set a date.”