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May 27--WARWICK -- From the day she moved into the quaint blue house at 234 Gertrude Ave., Pam Walsh has been ready to leave.
T.F. Green Airport is about a quarter-mile northeast of the two-story home she and her first husband bought in 1989. More than a dozen times a day, passenger planes roar overhead as they descend on the airport. The house shakes. Pictures fall from the walls. Window panes have even cracked.
So, on Tuesday, she welcomed the news that the house appeared to be one of the properties that the Rhode Island Airport Corporation would buy to make way for an extension of the main runway.
"We've been waiting 20 years," she said.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced at a morning press conference that it would back a plan to extend the runway 1,600 feet to the southwest, selecting the scheme over alternatives to expand north. Under the proposal, a section of Main Avenue would be pushed south.
The owners of 11 houses and 10 businesses in the construction area would be required to sell their property at fair-market value. The owners of 134 other houses that would be negatively affected by noise from the runway would have the option to sell.
Residents of the neighborhood around the airport expansion have yet to receive official notification about the fate of their homes. They'll be able to ask specific questions about their properties at a public meeting hosted by the FAA June 3 at 6 p.m. in the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Chris Cavanaugh, 28, had been told in previous public hearings that his two-bedroom house at 275 Groveland Ave. could be in the voluntary acquisition area. The house, however, appears to lie just outside the zone, according to a map released with the airport's proposal.
Cavanaugh, who unloads baggage at the airport for US Airways, would prefer to leave, but he said he's not bothered by the noise. Before he bought his house six years ago, the airport paid to have it soundproofed along with other nearby houses.
"If I win out, I win out," Cavanaugh said. "I knew they had to expand sooner or later."
Joyce Lyons, 69, has lived up the street at 249 Groveland Ave. since she was 3 years old. Her son owns the house now. She doesn't believe the white cottage sits within either the mandatory or voluntary acquisition zones. But Lyons said that even if her son had the chance to sell, he'd refuse.
"We'd only go if we had to," she said.
Three houses to the north, at 215 Groveland Ave., 64-year-old Jane Paquin said she'd heard that she would have the choice to sell her house. But she's not sure if she will. She lost her job as an insurance agent in January and she worries that if she were to move she'd have a higher mortgage payment than she currently does. She'd like to wait a year before making a decision.
"But I don't know if they'll have the money then," she said.
A block away, Min-Yu Chen, the owner of 44 Plain St., was set to meet with airport officials Tuesday afternoon to discuss selling. She has lived in her Cape Cod-style house for 10 years, but was sick of worrying that a tree nearby would fall on her house every time a plane passed by.
"It's like a tornado," she said.
Fran Gallucci, 66, lives at 10 Child Lane, one of the houses that appear to be in the construction area for the relocation of Main Avenue. The 66-year-old retired secretary has lived on the tidy cul-de-sac for 46 years. She loves the location but has never gotten used to the noise from the airplanes.
Gallucci said she would have moved away if she thought she could get a good price for her house. One home on the street was recently on the market for a year and a half but didn't find a buyer, she said. Asked if she'd sell now, she didn't hesitate.
"In a minute," she said.
There are no homes left between the airport and the blue ranch on Gertrude Avenue owned by Walsh and her husband David. The airport gradually bought them and tore them down. The house directly to the north of the Walshes' property was razed last fall.
In the 1990s, the airport spent $40,000 to soundproof the Walshes' house. Workers installed storm doors, double-paned storm windows and even central air conditioning so the couple could keep the house sealed up in the summer.
It's not enough, Walsh, 53, said. She wants to move to Foster, Scituate or another quiet place far from the airport.
As she spoke, a plane flew by.
"I don't want to live in a flight path anymore," she said.
