Fed Up With Airport Noise: Appeal Your Real Estate Taxes

This is worth the effort:

Appeal your real estate taxes based on the amount of noise pollution you have to endure since the O'Hare expansion.

Chicago residents fed-up with new plane noise from O’Hare Airport said Friday they are appealing their property taxes based on it — and hope to encourage others to do the same.

Members of the Fair Allocation in Runways coalition revealed the latest anti-noise-pollution strategy during a meeting of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission.

FAIR member and Sauganash resident Diane Yost said the planes that now stream over her house like a “string of pearls” have lowered her property’s value, perhaps as much as 10 to 15 percent, so her property taxes should go down, too.

 

“It’s prima facie evidence that your house values go down [based on airplane noise],” said Yost, a 39th Ward resident. A “very desirable swath of homes” on the city’s Northwest Side have been impacted by a new flight runway pattern launched in October yet are not eligible for O’Hare sound insulation, she said.

 

Yost said she filed an appeal of her property taxes by arguing that the new east-to-west flight flow has lowered her home’s property value by creating plane noise that didn’t exist when she purchased her house. She has yet to receive a ruling from the Cook County Assessor’s Office, she said.

FAIR member Judie Simpson, a North Park resident, asked the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission to resume publishing a list of each high-noise incident picked up by O’Hare noise monitors so residents can use the data to bolster their appeals.

 

Members said FAIR is considering briefing community groups on how to file property tax appeals based on new O’Hare noise -- a move that could hit the city in its pocketbook. FAIR also has sent Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel two sets of letters asking for a meeting about the “virtual highway of airplanes” over the Northwest Side, but has yet to hear back from him, members said.

The switch to mostly parallel runways should reduce delays in all kinds of weather and increase flight capacity, city officials have said. However, FAIR contends it has resulted in lopsided runway use, with 100 percent of night arrivals expected to be absorbed by one runway 70 percent of the year.

During Friday’s Noise Commission meeting, city officials revealed that O’Hare noise complaints continue to rise since the most recent phase of the O’Hare Modernization Program was completed in October. January 2014 complaints hit 6,321 – a new monthly record. The January 2014 total is up more than fourfold from January 2013.
 

Chicago Department of Aviation officials noted that the number of people complaining in January -- 462 -- is down from the 642 who beefed in December. About two-thirds of all complaints came from just eight homes, they said.
 

However, Aviation officials did not mention that the number of complainants in Chicago increased by 18 percent between December and January, with the bulk concentrated in the 41st, 39th, 45th wards. It’s beefs from suburban homes that are dropping.
Read the entire article in today's Sun-times.  Article written by Rosalind Rossi

 

 

 

 

We Need a City Council with Guts as the City's Credit Rating takes another Dive

So, at yesterday's city council meeting the aldermen duked it out over how to admonish Russia via our airports (who don't fly planes to/from Russia) and voted on a no brainer puppy mill ordinance.

Meanwhile, no mention of the City of Chicago Credit Rating taking another nose dive...this is bad, folks. This is real bad... And the mayor and city council have buried their heads in regards to finding solutions (namely, lets start taxing corporations who exploit our city and pay nothing)...
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/03/04/moodys-downgrades-chicagos-credit-rating-lowest-of-any-major-city-except-detroit/

CHICAGO (CBS/AP) — Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Chicago’s credit rating, citing the city’s unfunded pension liabilities.
The agency announced Tuesday it’s lowering the rating on $8.3 billion in debt from A3 to Baa1, putting it only three notches above junk-bond status.
Moody’s gave Chicago a negative outlook indicating another downgrade could occur if there’s no pension fix. Moody’s says the rating “reflects the city’s massive and growing unfunded pension liabilities.”
Moody’s says those liabilities “threaten the city’s fiscal solvency” unless major revenue and other budgetary adjustments are adopted soon and are sustained for years to come.
The lower rating means the city will have to pay high interest rates.
Moody’s says a commitment to increasing tax revenue is one thing that could raise the rating. Chicago now has the worst credit rating of any major city except Detroit.

Where is Our Promised Airport Noise Meeting?

Have received a few requests to address:   "when the airport noise meeting promised by the alderman will be"...  I don't know.  But it doesn't hurt to call and ask the alderman "when the meeting will take place".  A couple people have sent me facebook messages stating they prefer an anonymous blog over a face book discussion about controversial topics, just so they can remain anonymous.  I agree.  Most people will actually tell you what they think knowing it won't be used against them in some way.  So here is the latest article about the airport noise debacle...  to little, to late, but let's see what the feds can offer us (or what we can demand) in terms of noise mitigation for our homes.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-02-18/news/chi-ohare-jetnoise-fight-gets-symbolic-nudge-from-county-official-20140218_1_o-hare-noise-silvestri-jet-noise/2

O'Hare jet-noise fight gets 'symbolic' nudge from county official

February 18, 2014|By Jon Hilkevitch | Tribune reporter

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(Tribune illustration)

A Cook County commissioner plans to propose a resolution Wednesday calling for a mandatory “fly-quiet” program during overnight hours at O’Hare International Airport to address increasing jet noise from a new runway layout.
O’Hare’s 17-year-old fly-quiet guidelines are voluntary and run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily. They often are the last consideration of pilots, air-traffic controllers and airlines, whose primary focus is on safety, efficiency and passenger comfort, officials said.

Any move to make fly-quiet procedures mandatory would start with the city of Chicago, by conducting a study, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said.
The Chicago Department of Aviation declined to comment Tuesday on the matter. City aviation officials have previously dismissed calls for changes that would restrict O’Hare’s flight capacity.
Cook County Commissioner Peter Silvestri, R-Elmwood Park, proposed the mandatory flight restrictions and said he realizes the county doesn’t have jurisdiction over O’Hare. His effort is aimed at facilitating “an effective dialogue’’ between Chicago officials and noise-weary residents of the city’s Northwest Side and nearby suburbs, he said.
“This is not legislation I am proposing. It is mostly symbolic,’’ Silvestri said. “But many elected officials on the Northwest Side support the resolution as a way to say let’s be fair in allocating O’Hare noise so that everybody is on the same footing.”
Silvestri’s move comes as City Council hearings on O’Hare noise requested last month by two Chicago aldermen, Mary O'Connor, 41st, and Margaret Laurino, 39th, haven’t been scheduled yet.
Ald. Michael Zalewski, 23rd, who is chairman of the council’s aviation committee, said Tuesday that he expects to hold the first hearing within the next two weeks. He said it has taken awhile to coordinate the schedules of officials who will testify, including members of the Illinois congressional delegation, experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Chicago Department of Aviation, major airlines as well as the public.
Zalewski was careful not to raise expectations of any quick solutions among residents who have suffered more noise, including in the overnight hours, since O’Hare flight patterns were changed last fall.
In reference to Silvestri’s proposal, Zalewski said: “I’m not sure if making fly-quiet absolutely mandatory is doable at this point. The new runways that have opened are designed to bring in planes in certain ways, based on safety and capacity issues. Making fly-quiet mandatory is not something that I think the FAA is willing to do at this point.”
O’Connor, vice chairman of the aviation committee, said Tuesday it’s important for the hearing to be “meaningful and productive.’’
“You want people there to answer the questions and direct us along an avenue of what we have to do next. And not delay it any more,’’ she said.
O’Connor said the issues are complicated by the fact that they require action by the federal government to revise the current noise contour standards to make more homeowners eligible for federal funding to receive noise-abatement insulation, or to require the airlines to retire noisier, older planes on an expedited timetable.

 

For the time being, residents of the 41^st Ward “are just asking for a fair distribution’’ of flights to end the noise saturation over some areas, she said, adding, “I hope we are going in the right direction with these hearings.’’
The opening of a fourth east-west parallel runway at O’Hare last October marked a change in takeoff and landing patterns. The new air-traffic flow is generating more jet noise east and west of the airport and a noise reduction to the north and south of O’Hare.
The Chicago Department of Aviation’s voluntary fly-quiet guidelines for O’Hare’s airline pilots are in effect from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily. The guidelines provide operating procedures for using preferred runways and nighttime flight tracks to route planes over the least-populated areas.
Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino has rejected proposals to expand those guidelines to start at 9 p.m.
Andolino also denied requests from community groups and members of the Illinois congressional delegation to work with the FAA to use more runways late at night as a way to spread jet noise over a wider area but subject individual areas to a net reduction in planes overhead.
Numerous efforts to restrict jet noise by communities near airports have been proposed over the years, but few mandatory programs have been enacted, according to the FAA.

Click on the link above to see the entire story!