Chicago will spend $28 million to insulate 850 homes on the Northwest Side and in seven suburbs against noise from jets at O’Hare International Airport, officials announced Friday.
Norridge will see the most work this year with 211 houses slated for insulation, new roofs and central air conditioning. In Northlake, 196 houses will be soundproofed, and in Elk Grove Village, 141 houses will see renovations. The project also calls for soundproofing 104 houses on Chicago’s Northwest Side, 84 in Bensenville, 63 in Wood Dale, 38 in Rosemont and 13 in Des Plaines.
The work was announced by the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission, a group of suburban mayors and school officials working with the city to reduce the impact of O’Hare noise on surrounding communities. The group was formed in 1997 by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and gets its money from city sources.
The soundproofing funds come from a $3 tax added to tickets of all passengers taking off and landing at O’Hare.
The soundproofing work, which will get under way later this year, is in line with last year, when the commission also financed the insulation of 850 homes. Since 1995, Chicago has spent nearly $72 million soundproofing 2,175 homes around O’Hare.
With this year’s work, Chicago will have soundproofed almost half the nearly 7,000 homes most affected by airplane noise, city officials said.
While the Noise Compatibility Commission decided which areas around the airport are hardest hit by jet noise, it will be up to officials in each community to interpret commission noise maps and choose which houses will get work.
But critics of O’Hare noise say the so-called noise contour map, updated in 1997, underestimates the impact of plane noise in the suburbs.
“There are vast areas outside the contours shown that suffer severe noise,” said Joe Karaganis, a lawyer who represented Bensenville in a lawsuit alleging unfair distribution of soundproofing dollars.
The noise map will be updated again in 2000 after federal requirements for quieter planes take effect. With more new jets in the air, city officials have predicted that noise levels will decrease, but some suburban officials are worried that noise could increase if Chicago and federal officials succeed in adding flights at O’Hare.
In separate action Friday, the commission appointed a committee to study the noise impact of Daley’s proposed $1 billion terminal expansion at O’Hare.
