Something that I expected someone to bring up at the recent Town Council meeting but wasn’t: Uh…at what times of the day and on what days will all of that construction equipment be operating? You see, the Town of Christiansburg doesn’t have a noise ordinance. There is nothing to prevent dump trucks from starting delivers at 6am on a bright sunny Saturday (or any other day) and go until 10pm or later on that or any other day. The only way to control that is through proffers by the developer. One of the roles of the planning dept. is to bring issues like this up to the developer. The developer then has an opportunity to agree to construction hours as part of the conditions/proffers associated with the development. So, if the planning dept. or town manager points this out as a possible issue, and if the developer deems it feasible to do so, arrangements can be made on any given development to keep the hours of construction reasonable for that environment. Is there such a consideration in the package before Town Council now?
Since there are so few (if any) places in Town any more where construction would not impact neighboring communities, isn’t it time for the Town to come up with some for of noise ordinance for this situation. A noise ordinance does not have to be so specific as to be too cumbersome. It could simply be related to construction noise not impinging on the regular family and sleep hours that most people try to enjoy.
For a full review of the history and some of the current applications of noise ordinances, check out ….yes…that favorite resource of mine: Wikipedia – Noise Regulation. A simple noise ordinance like this could make life better for those who have to live through the noise around them and for public officials who will be held accountable after the fact when something like this slips through the cracks.
By Carol Lindstrom On February 8 at 1:00 PM
