The proposed stadium is marked with a red X. 
It is directly in line with the San Jose Airport flightpath.
The distance from the runway is about 13,000 ft.
That blue line is the 65 Decibel CNEL which stands for Community Noise Equivalent level. That is the Federal governments way of saying this area is noisy..really noisy. The site is surrounded by noise monitoring stations that take samples 24/7/365. You can see the monitoring system live by clicking here. The map is posted on the San Jose Airport site here.
OK, 65 decibels is not very loud, but that is an average level.
The noise levels will peak with each passing plane in the low to mid 80 decibles!
Now its great entertainment to get the other team a yardage penalty by making a lot of noise. Its another thing altogether to have the home team play calls drowned out by a passing plane.
Can you imagine paying for seats at a concert when you know planes will be going overhead every few minutes? What self respecting artist would even book the venue?
Location Location Location
The Issues: City, County, State.
At the city of Santa Clara level this site choice will result in a liability exposure higher than any NFL stadium ever built. Up to this point the NFL has been careful to avoid placing stadiums within the sound contour of an airport. It is not a random occurrence that there is not one single NFL stadium in an airport sound contour.
At the County of Santa Clara Airport Land Use Commission they are charged with basically keeping us from doing harm to ourselves around airports. While they do not have direct control over the stadium site they do have the ability to determine the site is not a compatible land use for various reasons like noise and safety. The City Council can override the ALUC with a 2/3 majority vote (5 out of our 7 members) and a finding of facts. These overrides remove liablities from the San Jose Airport and place them on Santa Clara.
At the State level they must approve that the basic reasoning that the city council has overridden the ALUC follows some logic. Since the city council will not be able to find a comparable stadium they will have to make up some other reasoning like a dome is not economically feasible for the 49ers to deaden the noise from the planes and that the number of aircraft crashing into things at that distance is acceptable to them.
Here are the accident charts that the ALUC and the city staff will be using.
They come from the California Airport Land Use Planning Handbook.
The handbook can be downloaded here.
The California Airport Land Use Planning Handbook describes Safety Zones that
help determine compatable uses. In the zones near the proposed site, at about 10,000 feet, outdoor stadiums are prohibited (page 9-45). However, this is for smaller airports, larger airports will use the noise contour to determine compatible land use. Using this method it is easy to point out where the low flying planes are, just follow the noise.
The method is mentioned in the FAA's manual "Land Use Compatibility and Airports" Page V-37. The manual is downloadable at the FAA website.
"In the absence of aircraft noise exposure contours, airport owners can define Airport Impact Zones and identify appropriate land use zoning for each impact zone."
Too Many People at Risk...
The ALUC has published some population density limits around the Airport.
They refer to a 10/25 rule within the "Safety Zone".
The Safety Zone is 1,500 feet wide and 5,000 feet long on the Santa Clara side.
The 10/25 rule is a limit of 10 people per acre on a year average and 25 per acre people at any one time.
Is ALUC serious about keeping people out of harms way?
Lets take a look at the ALUC policies:
"S-5 At Reid Hillview Airport..." "Area III - The bleachers in the baseball facility in Hillview Park shall not be expanded to seat more than 100 people."
This chart shows the population density per acre for the stadium when
viewed against the ALUC published limits.
But What About.....?
The HP Pavillion?
Its 8000 feet from the nearest runway but its not on the direct flightpath. Its 750 feet to the South West, less than 1/3 the seating, and it has a dome.
Wow, its like they planned it that way!
Shoreline Amphitheatre?
It is way off the flightpath and Moffet Field is barely operating anymore.
Buck Shaw Stadium?
Is not in the flightpath of any jet aircraft.
Any other NFL stadium?
None...not one has the same noise issues.
Each stadium is shown by Lat/Long on Google Maps.
The Noise Contour maps can have large file sizes.
City Stadium......................Noise Contour map from nearest airport(s)
San Francisco (existing) ......49ERS MAP
Atlanta GA............................Falcons N/A Domed Stadium
Baltimore MD .......................Ravens MAP
Foxborough MA ...................Patriots 5.5 miles from Norfolk Airpark
Orchard Park NY ..................Bills MAP
Charlotte NC .........................Panthers MAP
Chicago IL .............................Bears MAP
Cincinnati OH ........................Bengals >MAP #1 MAP #2
Cleveland OH ........................Browns MAP #1 BKL (no contour)
Irving TX ..............................Cowboys (New Stadium is Domed) old stadium MAP
Denver CO ............................Broncos MAP
Detroit MI .............................Lions N/A Domed Stadium
Green Bay .............................Packers MAP
Indianapolis IN ....................Colts N/A Domed Stadiums (old and 2008 stadium )
Jacksonville FL ....................Jaguars 10+ miles to nearest airport
Kansas City MO ...................Chiefs 7+ miles to nearest airport
Miami Gardens FL ...............Dolphins MAP
Minneapolis MN ...................Vikings N/A Domed Stadium
Nashville TN .........................Titans MAP
East Rutherford NJ ...............Giants \ Jets MAP #1 MAP #2 MAP #3
New Orleans LA ....................Saints N/A Domed Stadium
Oakland CA ...........................Raiders MAP
Philadelphia PA .....................Eagles MAP
Glendale AZ ...........................Cardinals MAP
Pittsburgh PA .......................Steelers MAP
St Louis MO ..........................Rams N/A Domed Stadium
San Diego CA .........................Chargers MAP
Seattle WA .............................Seahawks MAP
Tampa FL ..............................Buccaneers MAP MAP
Washington DC ......................Redskins 5 miles from Andrews AFB
Houston TX........................... Texans N/A Domed Stadium
Best Guess
Since the ALUC does not have any published land use guides for this distance lets make a "best guess" on the plan. The ALUC will likely be using the CNEL map at the top of the page for a guide but the California Airport Land Use Handbook has some sample static maps.
I have changed the runway color to red for clarity.
There are 6 zones on the chart. The closest is Zone 4 which stops at 10,000 feet.
Remember the stadium is at 13,000 feet.
If the air traffic pattern is changed by the FAA we would still be around Zone 6.
You can click on the chart for a larger version.
Here is another reference to support using the noise contour as a safety tool:
"Accident safety zones should be more focused on noise contours
Accident Safetey zones were perceived to be too restrictive and should be revised to be based on the 50-55 DNL noise contours. This was also noted by FAA staff as well as by many survey respondents."
(Page 40)Washington State Dept of Transportation Aviation Division Airport Land Use Compatibility Program Evaluation.June 2005 http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/FD617ED4-C590-4059-92DE-F45709844FA6/0/05APLandUseCompProgEvalAnaly.pdf
(Page 50) has a longer explanation in the "Summary & Recommendations" section.
So our "Best Guess" of the stadium site being unsafe is looking likely to be correct.
The latest timing of an EIR on the subject....5/13/08
When the city council was made aware of the land use issues of the site, the city manager was confident an EIR will be ready for the July council vote on the "term sheet".
How this is to be done is a mystery as the ALUC does not have any meetings scheduled until after the July "term sheet" vote.
The ALUC meeting schedule "Meetings are held on the fourth Wednesday of odd-numbered months at 6 p.m. at the County Government Center." That makes it late July as the next meeting as we have already missed the May submittal date.
This would just be for the submittal for ALUC review. The ALUC has 60 days to respond so September is the earliest anyone can get a definitive answer on the land use issues.
If the July meeting is missed the ALUC will likely not have time to respond until AFTER the residents vote on the stadium.
At this point we have to have confidence that our city staff can somehow work their way through the issues on their own.
