BURBANK, AIRPORT OFFICIALS SQUARING OFF OVER CONTROL.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

It sounds like a fight between the city of Burbank, which wants to minimize jet noise for residents, and Burbank Airport managers, who want to build a new, expanded terminal on a former warplane factory site.

But when lawyers for both sides face off in a Burbank courtroom today, they won't be arguing about noise - at least not openly.

Instead, this battle over the airport's estimated $250 million expansion plan will be over the question of who gets to call the shots on the 130-acre property where the airport wants to build a new, larger passenger terminal.

Will it be the city, backed by a state public utilities law that requires airports to get city approval before acquiring land for growth? Or the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which says federal safety and commerce rules give it pre-eminence?

The debate might sound arcane, but longtime expansion foe Don Elsmore, who lives three miles south of the airport, said the case is key, boiling it all down to the issue of local control.

``Do cities have any say over the growth of airports within their boundaries?'' Elsmore said. ``I think this case is important to every city in the state of California that has an airport.''

Burbank Airport officials argue that they don't need the city's approval to acquire Lockheed Martin Corp.'s former ``Skunk Works'' because they answer to a higher authority: the federal government.

These officials say Burbank wants to flex its muscle over land approval merely so it can demand concessions in return, such as a mandatory curfew on flights - limits they say are frowned upon by the Federal Aviation Administration.

They add that the FAA has warned that the current air terminal is too close to the center of the runway, posing a potential safety risk that airport lawyers say gives the airport the right to ignore the land-use rule.

Burbank Airport's terminal at one point is 313 feet from the center of the runway, while the FAA recommends that the buffer zone measure at least 750 feet, said Victor Gill, airport spokesman.

``Because this project involves a safety issue, the state cannot interfere,'' said Richard Simon, an attorney with McDermott, Will & Emery, which represents the airport.

But Peter Kirsch, an attorney for Burbank, calls the airport's argument disingenuous.

If the runway's proximity to the terminal truly represented a grave safety hazard, the FAA would have forced the airport to move the building a long time ago, he said. It has not.

``What they're saying is that if an airport wants to build something, all they have to do is put a safety component on it,'' Kirsch said.

He said the city will argue that the airport, by state law, must answer to local government when it comes to land acquisition for expansion. Laws of the state, which created the airport authority in the 1970s, cannot stop being applied to the authority once it is formed, Kirsch said.

``The state cannot create an entity whose existence is owed to the state Legislature and lose the power to regulate it,'' he said.

Legal observers say this case, to be heard in Los Angeles Superior Court, has such broad implications that it could someday wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

What has pitted the city against the airport is its plan to relocate its terminal to the former Lockheed parcel and add five gates to the current 14, in part because of safety concerns and in part to meet a projected 20 percent growth in flights.

But the airport is now encircled by middle-class residential communities that have placed steady pressure on the city to do all it can to limit airport noise, traffic and pollution.

``Burbank has the right to control its own destiny, and this case is an offshoot of that belief,'' said Burbank Mayor Bob Kramer.

The city has tried to get the airport to agree to a mandatory curfew on flights and to a ``noise budget'' that would prevent the airport from becoming any louder than its current levels.

Airport officials have always countered that the FAA disapproves of such restrictions because they essentially constitute limits on flights, which runs against a federal policy of ``open access'' to airports.

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Photo, map

Photo: Plans for the expansion of Burbank Airport have sparked a fight between the city and airport managers.

David R. Cranes/Daily News

MAP: Burbank Airport