In a move that will rankle citizen groups (one prominent advocate was tossed from the meeting) and ease the process by which large public projects get built in Seattle, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved legislation making it easier for large projects to apply for — and get — variances to the city’s construction noise laws. We wrote about the legislation and surrounding issues last month — Round-the-clock construction noise vs. public projects that don’t drag on and on.
While passing the legislation to approve the changes was not unexpected, there was a notable division on the council regarding councilmember Nick Licata’s proposal to increase the opportunity for public review of the noise process by creating an annual review of the ordinance. The proposal failed 5-4 with Jan Drago, Sally Clark, Tim Burgess, Tom Rasmussen, and Jean Godden weighing in against the amendment.
Perhaps helping to illustrate some of the reasons more public process isn’t always better public process, advocate Chris Leman was kicked out of the proceedings for disrupting the session.
Later, in an e-mail statement, Leman of citizen group the Quiet Alliance wrote, “For years into the future, Seattle businesses and residents–especialy people of color and those on low incomes–will suffer from noise and disenfranchisement because of how these five City Councilmembers voted today. In undermining the noise ordinance and the regulatory process itself, they have dealt a lasting blow to Seattle’s livability, and to democratic rights.”
Once again the developers control our lives and the city. It’s easy to fix…VOTE THEM ALL OUT!!
This isn’t aimed at “developers”, it’s aimed at public agencies. Think transit, roads, and infrastructure.
could the noise level have anything to do with the tunnel they want to dig?
Why is this upsetting? This is Capitol Hill — it’s noisy all the time.
It’s upsetting because it might mean that the Hill will be extra noisy at all hours of the night. Yes, it gets rowdy on the weekends, but even that tapers off after 3am or so. Construction noise wouldn’t, if they were going to go all through the night.
I don’t know how bad this is going to be – hopefully having our roads/light rail stations/etc. earlier will be worth it.
Thanks to the CHS blog for tracking the noise ordinance changes. I know I should stay away from blog comments, but what the heck.
First, Mr. Leman was not tossed from the meeting. He was warned he would be tossed if he couldn’t keep himself under control. There were two or three outbursts before the warning.
Second, nothing in the legislation makes it *easier* for anyone — homeowner, small business owner or Sound Transit — to get any type of noise variance. In fact, the new variance category for major public projects makes them (big dogs like Sound Transit, WSDOT, SPU, whoever) do more up-front work and mitigation planning than is required under the current law. The goal is to get them to prove they really, truly need a variance to work longer and/or more loudly and then to get them to spend the money necessary to mitigate/lessen the impacts. The trade-off that makes spending that extra money on super mitigation worthwhile is the longer term for the variance conditions (where the agency ideally saves money). Even with the longer term for the variance conditions, the city must enforce the rules, can change the mitigation requirements, and, in the worst case, shutdown a project for violations.
Digging the Capitol Hill light rail station will be noisy at times. I don’t know that you can move that much earth and install that much concrete and machinery without making noise. The goal is to make Sound Transit keep a lid on the noise using whatever means necessary.