Insulation against jet noise will cost you

When Stjepan Hlaca bought a tiny alley house midway between Lake Nokomis and the airport in 2000, it came with the full airport soundproofing package.

When he built an addition a year later that quadrupled its size, he thought the house, two blocks north of Crosstown Hwy. 62, would qualify for soundproofing aid and he invested in thick, noise-absorbent walls.

But he now has to foot the bill for the soundproofing because the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) had finished sound-dampening work in his area. So his well-insulated addition now sits partially finished as planes zoom nearly over him as they head to and from one of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's parallel runways.

Now, Minneapolis, Richfield and Eagan are considering ordinances that would require all new-home construction or home additions in the worst airport noise zones to meet the same noise-dampening standards that the Airports Commission uses when it insulates homes under the loudest runway zones. Homeowners would bear the cost.

That would increase the cost of a homeowner's project -- Minneapolis estimates an extra 15 percent -- because extra insulation, noise-dampening windows and doors, and sometimes air conditioning are required to meet those standards.

But the cities say the requirement would help maintain quality housing stock in airport-area homes and make them easier to resell.

Richfield and Eagan City Councils have sent the proposals back to staff members for more work. Discussion of the proposal has just begun in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis Council Member Scott Benson, who said his ward on the city's south edge is the most affected by airport noise, said the proposal makes sense.

The cities can't very well sue the commission to pay for noise-dampening of homes and not require the same level of protections in additions to those homes or newly built homes, he said.

"I don't think it's unreasonable for us," he said.

It helps with resale

Camille Kimmes, Hlaca's neighbor across the alley in south Minneapolis, agrees. When her family put an addition on its house three years ago, workers piled in extra insulation.

Benson thinks the financial effect is minimal because contemporary energy standards require better insulation overall and better windows and doors. "You probably wouldn't build a house these days without incorporating all these things," he said.

But making whole-house air-conditioning mandatory, unless a souped-up venting system is installed, would push costs up considerably.

John Nelson, a MAC program manager, deals with the costs of MAC's agreement in last year's settlement to add sound-dampening materials to thousands of additional homes that weren't covered in a 1990s abatement program.

He said that for houses with forced-air furnaces, the cost installing air-conditioning systems is averaging about $4,000 per house. But he estimates that the cost will jump to at least $10,000 for houses with gravity heat and at least $13,500 for homes with hot-water heat.

The cost of extra insulation shouldn't add much, while acoustical storm windows should add some cost, he said.

Richfield has mandated that city-assisted projects on the city's east fringe meet low- frequency noise-dampening standards. It hopes that new commercial development with those standards will help shield nearby homes from rumbling plane noise.

Erroneous promise of help

Hlaca bought his house when he was working at the airport for an architectural firm. "It was close to work and it gave me an opportunity in the future that I might build a new house," he said.

He got his expansion permit for the addition in late 2001, and said he was told by the city that his addition would qualify for MAC sound-dampening aid. So he factored that into his construction loan. But when he approached MAC officials about the money, he was told that his area had been finished in the initial MAC noise-dampening program and that it no longer qualified for the aid. That left him short of money to finish the house, despite neighborhood loans, even as he lost his job in the post-9/11 economic slowdown.

Said a frustrated Hlaca: "It's logical that if you're living near the airport that you get [money] to soundproof" your home.