DeKalb County residents who live near DeKalb-Peachtree Airport will soon have a new way to file noise complaints.
The general aviation airport, more commonly called PDK after its official FAA designation, announced Monday it’s partnering with a mobile app to track noise complaints. Named PlaneNoise, the app is expected to include PDK in April, according to PDK noise and environmental analyst Korey Barnes.
“We’re undergoing testing right now and integration with our current noise complaint system,” he said during this month’s Airport Advisory Board meeting. The app was developed by a firm from New York, and about two dozens airports currently track complaints with it.
The 765-acre airport is surrounded by residential neighborhoods in Brookhaven and Chamblee. Noise pollution has been a common nuisance among residents, who currently file about 90 noise complaints a month.
Barnes said PDK received 101 complaints in February. More than a third of those complaints took place between 6 a.m. and noon, and northern Chamblee residents accounted for most of them.
According to Barnes, noise levels vary between about 47 decibels on the south side of the airport and 65 decibels on the north side. PDK staff was also able to correlate 96% of the complaints with flights to and from PDK, while the remaining complaints were from airplanes that happened to be flying through the area.
PDK is primarily used for smaller planes and doesn’t service many commercial passenger flights. It’s the 11th busiest airport in the country for corporate jets, and it plans to get busier over the next two decades.
The airport currently has about 160,000 annual takeoffs and landings and predicts that will increase by roughly 58,000 by 2040. For more details on the airport’s ongoing projects and its 20-year master plan, visit pdkmasterplan.com.
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