Will you chip in to support our nonprofit newsroom with a donation today? Yes, I want to support My Edmonds News!
City of Edmonds staff made the case at Tuesday night’s Edmonds City Council meeting for revising the city’s noise ordinance to eliminate time restrictions for sounds generated by city street construction, repair projects or utility work. Staff also asked for permission to make it easier for private projects to get a variance for such work to go beyond existing time requirements.
Currently, noise time restrictions related to city construction projects are the same as for those placed on homeowner-sponsored residential projects — allowed from 7 a.m.-10 p.m., seven days a week.
Noise limits for private projects, such as a contractor building a home or work being done at a business, are from 7 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays, with no work allowed on Sundays and federal holidays.
To deviate from either of those restrictions requires city staff or the private contractor to apply for a variance, which involves the city hearing examiner and requires time to issue a public notice and conduct a public hearing.
“It takes quite a long time, on the low end, two to three months, and if it get rejected you have to come up with a new plan, it takes six months,” Public Works Director Phil Williams explained during a meeting of the council’s Parks, Planning and Public Works Committee. “There’s no way with that kind of timeline any of our projects, speaking for the city-sponsored projects, can look that far ahead and realize what nights we’re going to need a noise variance.”
City of Edmonds Development Director Shane Hope said there are times when the noise time limits becomes a problem for private projects as well. She cited as an example Swedish Edmonds Hospital, which is planning an all-day concrete pour, and needs to begin at 5 a.m. to ensure it can be completed. “That doesn’t fit into the regular hours,” Hope said. “Those are the types of situations where the city would like to allow some flexibility.”
In both city and private construction, the current ordinance does allow for limited use of administrative variances issued by the mayor at the staff’s request, Williams said, providing there is justification for it. The mayor can issue two variances total in a six-month period for two days or one variance every six months for three to seven days.
The problem, Williams said, is that some projects have multiple needs that require going beyond existing time limits. As an example, he cited the current traffic revisions at the intersection of 212th Street Southwest and 76th Avenue West. Because the project involves moving power lines underground and there are numerous businesses nearby, the city is trying to do much of that work at night to avoid business disruption.
For private projects, Hope is asking that noise ordinance variances be granted administratively — using a Type 1 permit procedure — rather than going through the time-consuming hearing examiner process.
Williams said that the city’s existing noise ordinance doesn’t cover the scope of the large public and private projects that are currently happening in the city.
“Edmonds is changing,” Williams said. “The size of our capital program, the amount of work we’re doing is an awful lot more than it just was a few years ago — that’s both the public and private sector. The noise ordinance may have met the scale of need at some time in the past, but we don’t think it does today.”
Both Williams and Hope stressed that in all cases, the city is committed to ensuring that the following factors are considered when determining whether a project should be allowed to continue outside the noise limits:
1. Public convenience – Will the work result in significant delays for transportation, services, or other customer needs if done only during the day and within the hour restrictions set out in other parts of this chapter?
2. Public safety – does working at night significantly improve safety conditions for the traveling public and/or construction workers?
3. Public exposure – What will be the setting for any proposed work outside of regular hours? Is it located on an arterial street or in a mostly residential area?
4. Public cost – Does a limited amount of authorized work outside of regular hours established by this chapter save the public significant cost compared to daytime work?
5. Have all reasonable steps been taken to reduce the impact of any necessary noise outside the standard hours? Answering this question needs to include evaluation of (1) limiting the night time or early morning work to only that necessary to reasonably mitigate the issues identified above, (2) use of quiet generators and quiet pumps (as available), (3) drilling and placing of piles instead of driving them, as well as use of other techniques, design choices, and acoustic control equipment and strategies necessary to minimize the night-time or early morning impacts from construction noise.
The goal is to “keep the amount of time you are working outside of the hours to an absolute minimum,” Williams said, “use the equipment that’s quiet, be cognizant of the setting you’re in — you’re in commercial setting or a residential setting. All of those factors need to be analyzed to minimize the impact.
The full council will review the request for changes to the noise ordinance during its June 20 business meeting.
Prior to committee meetings Tuesday night, the council approved the following items as part of its consent agenda:
– Confirmed Jeff Hodson’s appointment to the Edmonds Salary Commission.
– Confirmed Sarah Mixson to serve on the Edmonds Diversity Commission
– Approved a professional services agreement with Daniel Swedlow of Summit Law, for $290 an hour, for labor negotiations.
– Approved a equest for proposals for a baseline study of the Edmonds Marsh.
– Adopted the final ordinance for Shoreline Master Program update.
— By Teresa Wippel
Real first and last names — as well as city of residence — are required for all commenters.
This is so we can verify your identity before approving your comment.
By commenting here you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct. Please read our code at the bottom of this page before commenting.