Whiteman Airport sits on 184 acres in the middle of Pacoima. It has a single 4,120-foot runway and handled about 126,976 takeoffs and landings in 2025. About 31 businesses operate there, including flight schools, maintenance shops, avionics firms, aerial survey companies, and film and vehicle storage. At the runway's end, the address is 12653 Osborne St. On June 16 of this year, a small plane that landed without its gear down came to rest in the parking lot there, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
On October 28, Los Angeles County's Department of Economic Opportunity and a consultant team led by Trifiletti Consulting presented their land use study of the airport at Los Angeles Mission College on Eldridge Avenue. Most headlines led with the $3.5 billion cost of closing it. In the study's timing table, the scenario that closes the airport keeps Whiteman operating over Pacoima until around 2050 or 2051. For those 25 years, the airport would also stay largely outside the federal grants that pay for runway, lighting and safety work. The County stopped applying for those grants in 2020. The other two scenarios would start applying again.
A grant from 1999 sets the timeline
In 1999 the County used a Federal Aviation Administration grant to buy land in the airport's approach path. In a letter dated January 21, 2026, the FAA told the County that obligations tied to land bought with federal money "do not expire." The property stays federally obligated until the FAA releases it. The study's executive summary adds the federal standard for release. A closure has to show a net benefit to civil aviation, and housing or jobs on the site do not meet that standard on their own merits.
The Daily News coverage of the release quoted the report directly.
"Closing a federally obligated public-use airport requires a federal administrative process, not a local legislative action. Closure is not the county's decision to make alone."
The County also has its own leases to deal with. Its long-term ground and office leases at the airport carry options running to FY2059, and the County cannot end them for convenience. Comparable closures elsewhere took years to a decade from request to federal release. Almost none involved an airport as busy as Whiteman. Together, those two constraints produce the study's closure assumption of 2050/51, with full build-out "2075 or later."
Three scenarios, laid out side by side
The study compares three options and does not recommend any of them. It also states that safety improvements are needed now under every scenario. It estimates that leaving things as they are would cost the County about $27.0 million in net present value through 2050.
| Scenario 1: Preserve and Improve | Scenario 2: Transform and Optimize | Scenario 3: Transform and Repurpose | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What changes | Footprint stays the same; hangars rehabilitated, new hangars added | Aviation consolidated along the runway with about 97 new hangars; four sites opened for healthcare, biotech, logistics, retail and recreation | Airport closes; about 102 of 184 acres become roughly 8 million sq ft, including about 4,232 homes |
| FAA closure approval | Not required | Not required; FAA must approve converting the northwest portion | Required; study rates it "far from certain" |
| Timing | Near term | About 10 years for jobs to arrive; 3 to 4 years of CEQA and NEPA review before construction | Closure assumed 2050/51; build-out 2075 or later |
| County finances, NPV through 2050 | +$14.3M | +$24.3M | −$16.2M, before about $90M in demolition and a $3.46B redevelopment program |
| Jobs | About 382 within roughly 5 years | About 1,933 within roughly 10 years | About 12,102 at full build-out |
Scenario 3 has the largest long-run payoff, at about $3.16 billion in annual economic output once fully built out in 2075 or later. The study also notes that residential, medical office and biotech uses return negative land values today, so the build-out would depend on public participation, phasing and market timing. It adds that the two scenarios that keep the airport open still leave room for a full redevelopment later.
What the closure path would mean between now and 2050
The table's safety and community rows show what each option means in the meantime. In 2020, when the advisory committee began considering closure, the County stopped applying for new FAA Airport Improvement Program grants so it would not take on more federal obligations. The study says that decision also cut the County off from one of its largest sources of capital funding.
Under Scenarios 1 and 2, the County resumes FAA and state grant participation. That money funds pavement, lighting, marking and obstruction work. New hangar leases can then set requirements for tenant qualifications, insurance and maintenance as a condition of renting space.
Under Scenario 3, the airport "keeps operating over the neighborhood throughout the transition," and the same operating obligations still apply. The study expects no major modernization and no new FAA grants on that path, and it calls the FAA "less likely to award discretionary grants once closure is signaled." The upgrades that would come from replacing hangars and turning over leases become "largely unavailable."
The good-neighbor commitments listed for Scenario 1 carry into the other two:
- Starting an FAA Part 150 Noise Compatibility Study, the step that opens FAA funding and approval for sound insulation on eligible homes
- Air quality monitoring, electrification and stormwater management
- A transition to unleaded aviation fuel
- Expanded community engagement and transparency
Under Scenario 3, the study says the full community benefits of redevelopment arrive "over decades rather than years." One change is already in place. Quarterly safety seminars for pilots, ordered by the County at the request of Third District Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, began on July 27, according to the Daily News.
Six years of pressure led to this study
The current push began on November 12, 2020. That day, a plane on approach hit power lines and crashed on the 10600 block of Sutter Avenue. The pilot died. The Board of Supervisors created a Community Advisory Committee in December 2020. That committee later recommended the Board consider closure. On April 9, 2024, Horvath's motion asked for a study of the property's future both with the airport operating and after a closure. This year, a plane attempting to land on April 20 crashed into an auto parts store parking lot outside the airport, and the June 16 landing followed.
The study counts 12 accidents investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board at or near Whiteman from 2015 to 2026. Four people died, all of them aboard the aircraft. The NTSB attributed each accident to pilot error, operational factors or mechanical failure, not to the airfield or the tower. Compared with five similar urban airports nationwide, Whiteman had more accidents than the average and more deaths than any of the five, as LA County Politics summarized.
Pacoima Beautiful's Shutdown Whiteman Airport campaign has called on the Board to close the airport, citing safety and environmental concerns. Roberto Barragan, executive director of the Pacoima-based ICON CDC, responded to the timeline in a statement to LA County Politics after the workshop: "25-40 years is too long to wait for change."
The Whiteman Airport Coalition supports Scenario 2. Christina Pascucci of Atlas Impact, speaking for the coalition, told the Daily News that the FAA rarely approves closures and that the airport supports jobs. The coalition wants the County to apply for more FAA modernization funding. The study's numbers figure in both sides' arguments. Whiteman was the only one of the County's five general aviation airports to post an operating surplus from FY2022 to FY2025, about $1.1 million. The study also found that County Fire's air operations are based at the adjacent Barton Heliport and "do not depend on WHP's general aviation activity."
The dates still ahead
The study team plans to publish the final report on November 19. A 90-day comment period would follow, and the County expects to finish its review around February, according to LA County Politics. The study says the findings will go back to stakeholders before the report is finalized for the Board's consideration. The executive summary is posted at whplandusestudy.com, and the County's Whiteman Airport page carries updates from Public Works.
This is the second long federal timeline in the northeast Valley this fall. Metro broke ground on the East San Fernando Valley light rail on October 19 and targets completion in early 2032. Our Pacoima neighborhood page follows both projects.
This post summarizes the County study and the FAA's published position. It is general information, not legal or financial advice. If you own property near the airport, confirm with the appropriate professional how any of these programs might apply to you.
Long timelines like this one affect owners in very specific ways, from planning a renovation to deciding when to sell. If you own near Whiteman and want to talk through what the study's dates mean for your property, Brandolino Group can take you through it. Contact Us.
