FAA Again Grounds Crane, Copter for Too-Tall San Diego Tower

SAN DIEGO -- Sunroad Enterprises has asked the FAA five times for permission to use a crane and a helicopter to place heavy equipment on top of the office tower the company is building near Montgomery Field.

Each time, the FAA said no.

"We're not going to allow additional increases in the height of a building that we already determined is a hazard to air navigation, even if those increases would be temporary," Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The FAA's denials have slowed but not stopped progress on the building, which the FAA says is a hazard to planes landing at Montgomery Field in bad weather. Sunroad has found other ways to install some of the equipment, which it says is essential to finishing the 12-story building.

The huge air-conditioning and heating units, as well as the elevator components, are being dismantled and hauled to the roof on a small construction elevator. The units are then reassembled.

"Disassembling those components is an expensive and time-consuming chore, but that appears to be the only option available to us," said Tom Story, Sunroad's vice president of development.

Story said the company will hold the city liable for the expense, which he estimates will run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

The Sunroad project has triggered increasingly heated exchanges between City Attorney Michael Aguirre and city officials over Aguirre's attempts to force the developer to comply with FAA safety standards.

The latest outburst came last week after Superior Court Judge George "Woody" Clarke unsealed a search warrant connected to the project. Aguirre was using the warrant to seek evidence that Sunroad got special treatment from city officials, because Story was once deputy director of the planning department and chief of staff to former Mayor Dick Murphy.

Police Chief William Lansdowne refused to serve the warrant, but Sunroad has been voluntarily giving Aguirre some of the documents he was seeking. Aguirre then accused Lansdowne of deliberately hampering the investigation, and the chief said Aguirre was engaging in character assassination.

In August, the FAA declared the company's 180-foot-tall building a hazard because it exceeds the agency's 160-foot height limit. Planes that fly into the airport when the weather brings low clouds or high winds must circle within 400 feet of the building. Those approaches account for about 15 percent of the landings each year.

Aguirre has filed a lawsuit to force Sunroad to take down the top two floors, claiming the building is a public nuisance. Sunroad has countersued for $40 million, saying it abided by construction permits issued by the city's Department of Development Services.

Those permits were issued before the FAA was made aware of the building and declared it a hazard. City building officials have said they had no indication before the FAA's declaration that a tall building near the airport would be dangerous.

In October, the city ordered Sunroad to stop work on the top 20 feet of the building until the FAA's safety concerns could be addressed. The order was modified in December to allow Sunroad to weatherproof the project by adding a roof and building a room for the elevator equipment.

That work has been done, and Sunroad is now erecting the side walls on those top floors.

Marcela Escobar-Eck, the director of development services, has approved that work, even though the modified stop-work order didn't mention exterior walls. But when Aguirre learned that walls were being added, he ordered Sunroad to stop all work on the top.

Sunroad has ignored that order, contending that the city attorney has no authority in the matter.

The FAA has no jurisdiction over land-use decisions outside the airport proper, but the agency can control what Sunroad does in the sky above the building.

Sunroad first asked to erect a crane on top of the building Jan. 30. Two more rejections for cranes came within weeks of the applications.

A fourth request for a crane was filed Monday and was denied Thursday.

On Feb. 8, the FAA cited the city's stop-work order when it denied Sunroad's request to use a helicopter to lift the equipment to the top of the building.

"We respect local government decisions, and the applicant was unable to show that the work they proposed to do would not have violated the stop-work order," Gregor said.

Story maintains that by continuing the work, the company is not disregarding the safety of pilots or of the people who may occupy the building.

"We are proceeding on the basis that there is no safety issue here," he said.

The hazard designation no longer matters, Story said, because the FAA has warned pilots about the building and told them to fly around it.

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