Hacker News Reader

Comment by bradley13 | Hacker News Reader

Sure, this is classic NIMBYism. I understand: we live in a very quiet area, and would certainly oppose something that would dramatically change that.

However, what I do not understand are the people who move next to an existing airport, and then complain about the noise. We used to live near a major, international airport. Planes flew overhead. That noise was implicitly factored into the price we paid, and we certainly had zero room to complain. But lots of people did anyway, soaking up lots of time and money that would have been better spent elsewhere.

View on HN

When I lived in San Diego, I worked near the military airport now known as MCAS Miramar. My coworkers and I were honestly stunned by the people who sued after moving in nearby claiming that they had no idea the place they filmed Top Gun would be that noisy.

A better idea: Tear down the old MCAS Miramar and build housing and parks. Rebuild the airbase in Nevada or the California desert. Yes, it was bad planning to allow so many residences to be built near an airbase, but too late to undo it now.

You’re welcome to lobby your congress members for that but until the military says they’re moving it’s a mistake to buy a house there if you can’t live with the noise.

This is called “coming to the nuisance”[1] and in most jurisdictions the complainers have no case.

I’m sure it doesn’t stop them from trying though. Reid-Hillview airport[2] in San Jose has been there since the 1930’s, long before anyone who currently lives there, yet is constantly under attack by residents and threatened with closing.

1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/coming_to_the_nuisance

2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid–Hillview_Airport

How many planes were taking off in 1930 vs. today?

If you bought a residence in 1930, are you never allowed to complain?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor

I think if you bought a residence near the existing airport, any time after said airport was built, knowing full well there is an airport there, you should not be able to complain that there is an airport there.

Playing Devil's advocate, air travel is a much larger business than it used to be.

Over time the number of flights, size of aircraft and time of flights can change. This can lead to increased disruption over time. It's not unreasonable to complain about an unexpected increase in disruption.

You can factor some of this into the price, but you can't factor in unknown-unknowns.

Sadly, that sort of entitled idiocy (move next to an existing, then complain) is definitely not limited to airports. It doesn't matter if it's other nearby infrastructure (major roads, railroads, power lines, whatever), or lack of infrastructure (water, sewer, flood control, etc.), or the nicely-maintained vacant lot next door, or what.

people will complain about anything - in my very little town, about 25% of the roads are not paved. People would move into town, buy a house on a dirt road and then come to the town council to complain that their road was not paved.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com