ANIMA intervention: Iasi

Overview

^{Figure 1. Iasi International Airport and surrounding communities (source: Google Maps)}

Iasi Airport is located in the North-East of Romania, on a hill of approximately 180 m height and 3.5 kilometres away from Iasi city. The airport has three main domestic routes, as well as various international routes for over 15 countries, within and outside the European Union. All regular/charter flights are operated on a single runway and in partnership with up to ten airlines. Passenger volume increased significantly, from 200,000 passengers in 2012 to 1,3 million passengers in 2019. Pre-COVID-19 forecast for the next five years estimated a number of 2 million passengers per year.

Noise regulations

The Environmental Noise Directive (END) was transposed into the National Legislation in 2005. Updated versions were published through the years, together with the necessary framework for implementing and evaluating its provisions. The last update was the implementation of the new Noise Law in 2018. Additionally, Strategic Noise Maps and Action Plans were developed since 2014.

Nature of the case study

Prior to the effects of COVID-19 on air traffic operations, Iasi Airport was classified among the fast-growing airports in Europe. Even in the beginning of 2021, in spite of all challenges faced by airports at a global level, Iasi Airport remained among the busiest five Romanian Airports in terms of aircraft movements.

The rationale behind this case study was derived from the fact that Iasi Airport started to face encroachment issues in the absence of effective legislative land-use planning provisions. Noise zoning around airports and preventive or corrective actions against encroachment were limited to few and unclear recommendations and also spread across different legislations in an unharmonized manner. Thus, the airport took the initiative, with the support of INCD-T COMOTI, in raising awareness about this issue, which has increased in importance to almost all Romanian airports in the past years.

Process

In order to raise awareness about the pressure of encroachment on airport operations and its corresponding noise effects on neighbouring communities, the airport launched a workshop regarding land-use planning in 2018, to engage as many stakeholders as possible. With the support of the ANIMA Project and many of its consortium partners, the airport managed to initiate discussions with representatives from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the Romanian Ministry of Environment, airlines operating in Romania, the Association of Airports from Romania, other aviation stakeholders (e.g. airspace procedure designers), independent experts (aviation, environment), as well as with members from the surrounding communities around the airport. The aim of this meeting was to develop a common understanding of the issue, while gathering input from as many stakeholders as possible with regards to future steps towards finding effective solutions. The main conclusion was that aircraft noise has become a pressing problem and that it should be managed appropriately through the use of all available tools (e.g. ICAO Balanced Approach pillars).

After the workshop, continuous communication between most stakeholders (workshop participants) was ensured through individual periodic meetings and responsibilities, which were shared among them accordingly in order to make use of available tools for managing aircraft noise. Apart from having defined a clear need to tackle encroachment at a national level, identified ‘best practice’ from other airports (e.g. Kiev Airport, Heathrow Airport) has contributed significantly to formulate the strategy of this intervention in order to support the definition of land-use planning provisions in a clear and transparent manner.

In this sense, all relevant policy-makers were identified (Ministries of Environment, Transport, Regional Development and Tourism, Health). After an extensive analysis of the available legislative framework, various gaps and unclarities were identified: unclear responsibilities regarding noise restrictions for residential buildings near airports, absent mandatory aircraft noise limits that influence the possibility to undergo constructions around airports, unclear procedures to follow during constructions performed around airports related to aircraft noise and absent corrective actions against failure to account for aircraft noise during residential development projects.

Each party was invited to open discussions in order to investigate their legislative possibility to engage in managing noise and their limitations to support the implementation of land-use planning provisions in Romania.

Findings

The identification of various gaps regarding the general management of air traffic noise led to the conclusion that land-use planning could not be effectively regulated without a strong, clear, transparent and harmonized national legislation, which determined the need for the airport to offer permanent support to all stakeholders in investigating all missing links and limitations (e.g. according to previous legislation, only the airport was responsible for air traffic noise management). Continuous communication (face-to-face meetings, e-mails, phone discussions) with stakeholders has led to clarifications within the present noise legislation, as well as to additions enforcing its application (e.g. extension of responsibilities among all stakeholders) and has supported the development of land-use planning statements as a first basis in Romania, within the Air Code.

Responsibilities of each stakeholder were further included as mandatory provisions within the legislation. The Air Navigation Service Provider included Noise Abatement Departure Procedures (NADPs), the Ministry of Environment has drafted, published and refined a new Noise Law and the Ministry of Transport, together with the support of the CAA, has worked on drafting and publishing a new version of the Air Code that includes mandatory noise zoning provisions. Even after so many efforts concentrated in the past few years, land-use planning provisions are still at an incipient phase. Next steps include the definition of methodologies for developing noise maps, for noise zoning and for establishing noise protection zones.

Conclusion

Best practice examples from other airports could serve as a good initial informative basis for understanding the options to approach land-use planning interventions. In spite of this, such information is always limited in application to the local context (e.g. legislation, costs, available personnel). In the case of Romania, land-use planning measures can be implemented only by the Local Public Administration Authorities. Therefore, the available options of Romanian Airports to act upon such issues are limited and restricted by law.

However, raising awareness about encroachment and supporting the policy-makers in preparation of a resolution in this sense has the potential to become an effective initiative of airports in tackling such issues, through constant communication, to protect both citizens and airport expansions while preventing future noise operating restrictions and supporting regional economic growth.

Continuous communication among relevant stakeholders for aircraft noise management had a significant contribution to achieving a harmonized legislative framework in this sense. Therefore, all provisions across legislations and initiatives (e.g. NADPs) are interconnected and have a clear dependency between each other and serve as a clear foundation for a further adoption of effective land-use planning provisions. For example, the noise zoning process (from the Air Code) is required to be based on noise maps (from the Noise Law) for all Romanian Airports and the noise protection zones determined through this process have to be integrated within the wider land-use planning spectrum in the region, i.e. in Urbanism Plans (from the General Regulation on Urbanism).

ANIMA intervention: Iasi

Overview

Nature of the case study

Process

Findings

Conclusion

Navigation

Legal Disclamer

Contact