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If you are going to live on islands dominated by tourists - you need to understand the risk/reward and that your situation might change.
Like buying a condo with an ocean view - and 20 years later a building is proposed to be built in front of you and jumping up and down knowing your view will go away and expecting someone to do something about it.
No.
And nobody else should have to move either.
Businesses are restricted from operating in residential zoning. Being up in the air doesn’t escape the intent for the controls. Furthermore, even if a business located within its zoning adjacent to residential neighborhoods emits extremely offensive odors, or begins new operations that exceed noise ordinance limits, they are required to adjust and conform to ameliorate.
The noise from these helicopters is frankly, literally, toxic.
If you don’t like businesses having to operate with responsibility toward the public health and welfare … well, then I suppose you should just move to a place that has no restrictions.
If you don’t like businesses having to operate with responsibility toward the public health and welfare … well, then I suppose you should just move to a place that has no restrictions.
I wasn’t suggesting you move because of helicopter noise. I was suggesting you move if you don’t like living in a community that would restrict them in favor of public health, safety, and peaceful well-being.
Oh boy - the community cannot restrict them - full stop. That is a federal issue.
And given this has been par for the course for literally several years - nobody should expect things to change.
The FAA can be both sued and legislated. The fact that so far it has prevailed in maintaining its authoritarian stances re: airspace control - is not a law of physics.
But, more to the point in this thread is that, regardless of your individual opinion, the issues of public nuisance, health, safety, and well-being are certainly valid concerns for the public to express to their representatives to Washington.
‘Nobody should expect things to change” is hardly an historically sound advice in general. Things once seemingly set in stone have many times been demolished.
A lot of people bought their homes before tourist helicopters were a thing.
The tour operators could take alternate routes, and/or fly higher over the subdivisions, but choose not to because of cost. One of the issues was that if they flew over the water the FAA would require them to have extra safety equipment the operators are unwilling to pay for.
The tourists could be bused past the subdivisions to a helipad instead of flying over them, but the tour operators choose not to because of cost.
Tourists could be flown on quieter helicopters, but most of the operators choose not to, because of cost.
So to post something like, "If you don't like the noise then move" ignores that the helicopters and residents could co-exist. But the companies operating the helicopters aren't interested in co-existence, they just want the whiners to move away. That's what the crap neighbor we had used to say about people who didn't want to listen to his hillbilly crap cranked up to 11.
The tour companies can choose, do they want to be a crap neighbor, or do they want to co-exist? So far, they've only made worthless gestures focused on maximizing profit. That's a crap neighbor. Dumping their noise pollution all over every subdivision is only marginally better than dumping other forms of pollution. Thankfully the helicopters don't have toilets. At least not yet.
FWIW, most of the helicopter noise was from cruise ship passenger excursion tours, and so far they haven't recovered from COVID. So the last few years have been so quiet, I had almost forgotten about the issue.
Esther is concerned about the helicopter noise? Has she ever been on a street on this island? The noise from the modified racer cars, trucks, muscle cars, motorcycles, mopeds, etc is many many times louder than any tour helicopter. I actually own a decibel meter and have measured the noise helicopters make when flying overhead at my house. They might clock in at 60-65 decibels tops and that is only if they are flying lower than they normally do. A Harley with a modified straight pipe would clock in at over 110 decibels (at ~100 feet). And based on the logarithmic decibel scale, this is over 10,000 times louder than the tour helicopters. There are noise laws in place to penalize these noise offenders but our government does nothing to enforce the law.
At least helicopter tours provide a service to tourists and locals alike and only fly during the day... so people can sleep at night. As long as the city continues to do absolutely nothing to address the 24/7 madness of noise on our streets (which negatively impacts far more people on this island than the tour helicopters), I'd be a bit annoyed if any politician or group of individuals successfully prevents these helicopters from operating their business exactly how they are today.
Esther is concerned about the helicopter noise? Has she ever been on a street on this island? The noise from the modified racer cars, trucks, muscle cars, motorcycles, mopeds, etc is many many times louder than any tour helicopter.
Agreed - hence nothing will change. This is such a non issue - the FAA will not jump in on this - the flight paths over Ewa homeowners are far worse than any helicopter which the FAA could also control. I sat in the living room of a friend in Ewa and I had to stop talking over the roar of jet engines.
And it appears practically nobody read the actual article (some did) which is 100% Oahu focused.
In general, I believe these sort of articles are often the result of a very small number of people who just want to complain about something. And then a reporter who needs a story decides to completely over amplify the voices of a few malcontents and create the newest “crisis”.
Helicopters fly past my condo building every day. But even if I’m outside, I really don’t hear them. They stay away offshore.
I’d like to see some video of these helicopters harassing these homes before I jump on the bandwagon.
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