Is there a noise problem you’ve been experiencing in town that makes you crazy? Let the Noise Bylaw Committee know what restrictions you are (or aren’t) interested in having enacted.
This year, the Town created a committee to research and draft a proposed Noise Bylaw. The hope is to have something that Town Meeting can vote on this spring.
As part of that effort, they are seeking input from the public on what a bylaw should/shouldn’t include. A hearing will be held this Wednesday night and interested members of the public are encouraged to participate:
The Town of Southborough is currently engaged in the process of creating a Noise Bylaw to ensure that Southborough continues to be a healthy and enjoyable community for all our residents. At the 2021 Town Meeting, a proposed Noise bylaw was discussed by residents, after being postponed for vote, the Select Board created Noise Bylaw ad hoc Committee to address the uncovered concerns and begin creating a bylaw for consideration at the 2022 Town Meeting.
The committee has been gathering information on surrounding Massachusetts town bylaws, and we are now seeking public opinion on sources of noise and noise control guidelines to begin developing the bylaw.
Please join the public hearing to discuss the Noise Bylaw and provide your feedback to help the committee create guidelines for consideration at the 2022 Town Meeting.
The meeting is at 7:30 pm on December 15th over zoom. You can access the agenda here and look for a zoom link (closer to the meeting) here.
The Noise Bylaw initiative is in response to public interest voiced at the last Annual Town Meeting. Two of the nine members on the ad-hoc committee had put forward a Citizen’s Petition Article for a bylaw. Many who spoke at the meeting had concerns about specific language/restrictions in the bylaw, like restrictions on noise levels allowed for commercial landscapers’ equipment. But plenty, including those with concerns, advocated that some kind of law on the issue was badly needed.
Select Board members told voters that they heard them. They recommended voting against the Article and promised to follow up to work on a more manageable version. The Article was indefinitely postponed.**
On September 8th*, the board appointed seven volunteers. Members include the two main proponents of the original Article, a retired Westborough police sergeant who had experience dealing with noise complaints, and an employee at a landscaping company. [Full disclosure, they also include my husband, who argued at Town Meeting that a simpler, less restrictive version of the bylaw should be created.]
Also serving on the committee as ex-officio members are the Southborough Police Chief and a designee of the Board of Health (the Public Health Director).
Updated (12/14/21 12:37 pm): I realized that while the headline listed the date, the body of the story didn’t.
*Updated (12/14/21 2:06 pm): I initially referred to the appointment as being in the summer. While that is accurate, I do also sometimes refer to September as fall. (The seasonal calendar which identifies summer as ending September 20th is different than the school year calendar which tells us summer ends in August.) I’ve replaced that with the actual date. The committee’s first meeting was on November 4th.
Updated (12/15/21 11:21 am): A commenter objected to my initial characterization of the Citizen’s Petition Article as having failed. The clear majority of voters voted to indefinitely postpone the Article against the wishes of proponents. I considered that a failure, but others may consider it a postponement.
Updated (12/15/21 3:48 pm): I accidentally listed the time as 7:00 pm. It’s 7:30 pm.
The noisiest thing in Southborough is the trucks, motorcycles and modified cars on route 9. I wish there was a way to deal with that.
The noise bylaw article presented at the Spring 2021 town meeting was never voted on1
So, how could it have failed?
In a point of fact, it revealed there was considerable support for such a bylaw, as several people expressed their support for a noise bylaw.
There was a motion to “postpone indefinitely” the article, which passed. No pass/fail to pass vote was taken on the article.
Review the video if you require confirmation of these facts.
The clear majority of voters approved indefinitely postponing the Article. The only way that isn’t a failure to pass would be if the proponents had recommended the postponement. However, I’m happy to add that clarification.
^We don’t live in a bubble in Southborough. Complaining about Rt 9 noise is absurd. Then move. Southboro is surrounded by highways. Next people will be complaining about airplanes flying over Southborough…
Oh boy, I guess we found “that guy” who needs to let everyone around know how cool they are in their obnoxiously loud vehicle.
Correction- The public hearing on the Noise Bylaw is at 7:30 pm tonight. The link in the article will bring you to the zoom meeting link.
Thanks for getting out the word, Beth!
Thanks for pointing that out!
Noise bylaw. So, you want every sub contractor to retool their equipment, so you can have total quiet. Whose paying for this expensive proposition. Certainly you realize how many businesses have closed up. Now compound their already high cost of gasoline (thanks to Biden), to power their equipment, owners of businesses are stepping in to work because they don’t have any labor. You’re contributing to the demise of businesses we rely on. Better think again. Attacking small business will cost all of us. Let’s all get cows to chew our grass. This is a ridiculous proposal.
Who is “you” and what “proposal”? It sounds as though you are reacting to a specific bylaw proposal. None have yet been drafted.
Before drafting one, the committee is seeking public feedback on what should and shouldn’t be restricted by levels and/or hours. If you want your viewpoint to be considered, they are asking the public to participate in a survey.
And – actually – I should have pointed out that one of the questions on their survey is whether or not you think there should be a Noise Bylaw.
Oil prices are determined by worldwide supply and demand. Prices for a barrel of oil is up everywhere on the globe.
I think this law is a bad idea on a number of levels.
1. Let’s be real clear about who this law targets. It is not bankers, computer scientists, engineers, and lawyers. It is hard working manual laborers. People who get up early in the morning and often work late into the evening to support their families and provide us with the services we demand. They are working class, often immigrants. Laws like this cut into their livelihoods and I regret to say it are the subtle tools on institutional classism and racism.
2. The idea that residents or property owners should be exempted from this law is even worse. Picture the poor police officer called to ticket the Hispanic lawn care worker for his noisy leaf blower while the white lawyer next door runs his with impunity. We should not put the police in the position of enforcing this sort of hypocrisy. It is not a good look for our community.
3. There are noisy jobs that need to get finished in a day if at all practical. Every home in Southborough will need a new roof in the next 30 years. Roofers arrive early in the morning and work late in the day trying to make sure that your home is tight to the weather by the time the leave at night. They use compressors, saws, nail guns, and hammers. They make noise. Do you really want your house to go overnight without a roof because the roofers could not start early and had to leave before they were finished?
4. This law will raise the price of all the formerly noisy services we all consume.
5. If we have such a law the standards need to be measured by an independent device. Leaving enforcement up to an officers judgement leaves the officer and the town subject to claims of subjective and selective enforcement or worse.
I hope the committee will realize what a can of worms has been opened and decide that no law is better than a poor law and this will likely be a very poor law.
Al, your entire analysis is simply off. Please keep an open mind, and please take a look at noise bylaws in other communities. The only thing strange about a noise bylaw is that it took us this long to adopt one. Straight up: it is standard operating procedure for many municipalities to have noise bylaws. The concept isn’t new. It is tried, tested, and successfully implemented throughout this state and the country. You are missing an entire element that noise bylaws address: commercial activity. How would you like to be awakened at 6am on a Sunday morning by a commercial truck dumping gravel? How about blasting granite or bedrock for site work? Have you ever heard a rock crusher on a commercial site? How about a backhoe beep, beep, beeping because it is backing up at 6am on a neighboring site on Saturday morning? There are many examples of great noise bylaws that work for everyone. Hit the Google button.
Let’s try to differentiate fact from opinion. You have offered your opinions and I am providing factual information. Everyone, of course, may expess their opinions, which may or may not be factual.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s examine your professed opinions.
1. Let’s be real clear about who this law targets. It is not bankers, computer scientists, engineers, and lawyers. It is hard working manual laborers. People who get up early in the morning and often work late into the evening to support their families and provide us with the services we demand. They are working class, often immigrants. Laws like this cut into their livelihoods and I regret to say it are the subtle tools on institutional classism and racism.
Let’s be clear about who this bylaw targets. It is the people and/or equipment making excessive noise in the Town of Southborough.
Since Southborough is a Town, it would be properly termed a bylaw.
The race or ethnicity of the people who own the businesses or work the equipment has nothing to do with the implementation of such a bylaw.
Let’s also be clear on why Southborough needs a Noise Bylaw. It is because there is no Noise Bylaw and the rights of citizens are constantly being violated. During the recently held Noise Bylaw Committee public hearing, one of the participants, and a member of the Southborough Board of Health, stated, “Everybody in town whether they live on Main St. or whether they live near route 9, everybody has a right to enjoy their property, to enjoy their yard, maybe eat outside or play with their children…”.
Over the last few months, on at least two occasions while visiting a friend of mine, we were forced to move inside because of the arrival and operations of two different landscaping companies. In the first instance the crew arrived and began the simultaneous operation of two, large commercial grade mowers and two backpack leaf blowers. Each of the mowers emit ~90 dBA and the backpack blowers ~95 dBA. The second event occurred later in the Fall and involved the simultaneous operation of a stand-on commercial grade mower, one backpack leaf blower and a trailer-mounted giant vacuum cleaner. My friend measured the resulting sound level from his yard, 2 houses away, and a distance of around 100 feet, and it was in excess of 80 dBA. This cacophony went on for almost 7 hours.
2. The idea that residents or property owners should be exempted from this law is even worse. Picture the poor police officer called to ticket the Hispanic lawn care worker for his noisy leaf blower while the white lawyer next door runs his with impunity. We should not put the police in the position of enforcing this sort of hypocrisy. It is not a good look for our community.
My understanding of the proposal is twofold: first, homeowners typically buy non-commercial grade equipment, which operates at significantly lower noise levels than does that used by paid contractors. Second, those few homeowners that have purchased commercial grade equipment, operate that equipment for very short periods of time, and not in tandem with other mechanical noise sources.
The same friend noted above has one neighbor who does, in fact use a gas-powered leaf blower – occasionally – and it operates at a much lower noise level than do the contractors’ gas-powered leaf blowers. He also has another neighbor who owns a commercial-grade walk behind mower. I’ve been at my friend’s house when the neighbor is mowing his lawn and it sounds no different than a Toro or John Deere walk behind homeowner mower.
The examples illustrate that it’s about two very different classes of equipment.
3. There are noisy jobs that need to get finished in a day if at all practical. Every home in Southborough will need a new roof in the next 30 years. Roofers arrive early in the morning and work late in the day trying to make sure that your home is tight to the weather by the time the leave at night. They use compressors, saws, nail guns, and hammers. They make noise. Do you really want your house to go overnight without a roof because the roofers could not start early and had to leave before they were finished?
In the videos I’ve reviewed, there has been no discussion of applying a noise bylaw to one-off operations. Of course people have to have their roofs replaced on occasion, someone needs to have a tree taken down by professionals.
Unfortunately, as typified by naysayers, raving hyperbole is used as an argument taking extreme cases and citing them as irrational objections to various proposals.
To be clear, the intent of a noise bylaw is to finally bring some protection from excessive noise to the tax paying homeowners of the Southborough community.
There is ample scientific evidence that excessive noise results in damage to both the mental and physical health of humans. Please review the MA governmental agencies’ definitions of excessive noise: In the daytime, a change in level of pure tone of more than 10 dB is considered excessive. The MA Boards of Health considers a delta of 5 dB in the evening as excessive. Recall the definition of nighttime hours in the MA Boards of Health Noise Bylaw Template: 6 PM – 7 AM weekdays and al day Saturdays, Sundays and observed holidays.
4. This law will raise the price of all the formerly noisy services we all consume.
There is no factual evidence to back up this fear-mongering, scare tactic claim. The 50+ towns and cities in the Commonwealth of MA with noise bylaws have not reported significant increases in services costs.
5. If we have such a law the standards need to be measured by an independent device. Leaving enforcement up to an officers judgement leaves the officer and the town subject to claims of subjective and selective enforcement or worse.
If you have followed the ongoing discussions, this is still being worked out. Committee members have various ideas and have solicited community input on this subject. It comes down to objective vs. subjective measurement.
One thing is certain, there is simply too much noise in Southborough!
It has been reported that close to 100 people signed the Citizen’s Petition in order to get the Noise Bylaw Article in the 2020 (and 2021, when it was actually presented) Town Warrant. Enough support was expressed for the establishment for a Noise Bylaw at the 2021 ATM that an ad hoc committee was formed. Rumor has it that a few hundred people have provided input to the recently advertised survey put forth by the Noise Bylaw committee.
The “you” I mentioned are the residents of Sobo. Another LAW, or a fear tactic. Change starting times for contractors. Now that was simple. Watch out who you put out of work and business, because they can’t afford new equipment. There are approx. 20 jobs I could mention that require the use of machinery, equipment/contractors that are temporarily noisy when working. One such job mentioned above is roofers. They like to finish a roof in 2 days depending on the size of the job. Is this so called noise committee going to count how many nails are used to secure a roof.
As for SB resident below. Manual jobs can’t be done from 9-5. The laborers aren’t bankers. “Throw a tarp over the roof”. Have you ever done roofing. You want a tarp over your roof when it’s 20 degrees out. In and out. That’s the job. Have you ever had machinery break down in the middle of a job, cutting lawn let’s say. My point is, baseless restrictions will cost a lot more than noise.
1) Working class laborers shouldn’t have to get up early in the morning and work late into the evening. This job can be done 9-5 and I see no reason why shouldn’t be.
2) This argument implies that citizens and businesses should be equal. I don’t agree, imposing stricter regulations on businesses is fair and justified.
3) There are jobs that are noisy and they do need to get done, but even your example of roofers doesn’t hold. They could divide the roof into manageable pieces if the job can’t be done in the legal hours. They could throw a giant tarp over the roof for the night. Maybe that costs a little more, maybe it doesn’t, either way I’m all for paying more to limit the noise.
4) A better environment will cost more, it’s worth it!
5) Agreed.
6) Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
The reality is that property owners have a vested interest in such and also in their surrounding community. They have the right to protect it as much as anyone else has the right to make a living. If a consensus can be reached, why not try?
Also, let’s not bring racism into every conversation in an attempt to win by shaming the opposition into silence with false rhetoric.
Tim –
Happy New Year
First, I don’t think that consensus between Southborough residents and the contractors that supply needed services is on the table. The vast majority of those contractors do not reside in Southborough and do not have a voice.
I don’t like bringing race/ethnicity into the equation but the reality is that a lot of the noisy trades that some are complaining about are dominated by or have a very large Hispanic representation. There is no getting around the fact that these regulations will have an outsized impact on ethnic groups not well represented in our community. We need to think long and hard about the consequences of our actions.
Mr. Hamilton – please understand the unwritten rule in America today: Only Democrat leaders and their race bating allies can bring up race.
You still don’t get it!
Nobody’s job has to be on the line. All these contractors have to do is start using QUIETER equipment! So, you can STOP trying to lay the race card. Red herring.
Did you fail to read the post below by Peter Quirk? The description portrays a commercial landscape company operating their ELECTRIC equipment in order to complete their tasks – without jeopardizing the health and welfare of the community.
Now THAT’S something we could live with in Southborough.
I believe that we will see a gradual shift towards battery powered solutions largely driven by market forces. I have solar panels on my house and drove hybrid cars over 10 years ago. My next car will likely be electric.
That being said, it is very easy to be cavalier with other peoples money. For example, there are battery powered electric commercial mowers on the market. The are expensive. Well north of $20,000 and over $10,000 more than a comparable gas mower. If the contractor has to spend more for his/her equipment they are going to charge more and we will pay more for their services.
Same is true for chainsaws, I have some experience in this area and electric chainsaws have a place but as of yet they are not equal to gas saws for commercial applications. The consumer again will have to pay for the loss of productivity.
Sorry, but just as zoning laws have the unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of economic (and by extension racial) discrimination the enforcement of these noise ordinances will fall more heavily on minority populations. When a law, intended or not, falls more harshly on a minority then it is, in my book, another brick in the wall of institutional racism.
Mr. Roosevelt –
I don’t think *YOU* get it.
But let me see if I can level-set your concern. . .
Local “Noise Ordinance” across the nation, as of late, has become a Trojan Horse for advancing extreme Left “green” agendas, including the outright **banning** of small gasoline engines for landscaping and lawn maintenance equipment.
https://southpasadenan.com/south-pasadena-education-on-gas-powered-leaf-blower-ban-begins/
Per a November 11th article in the South Pasadenan New (S. Pasadena ,CA):
“Those loud, obnoxious, ear piercing, and polluting gas-powered leaf blowers at the hip of independent gardeners and residential users will soon be going by the wayside. South Pasadena City Council members made sure of it with recent legislative action banning their use beginning October 1, 2022 and California Governor Gavin Newsom took further action by signing a bill, AB 1346, that will prohibit the sale of new gas-powered leaf-blowers, lawn mowers and other off-road engines that could go into effect by 2024.”
“Addressing the high pollution of yard maintenance, the City of South Pasadena held a “Electrify Your Lawn, No Gas South Pas”
Before Southborough embarks on the dweebish, overreaching, policy-wonk social engineering of commercial /residential landscape maintenance operations, services, and tools, you may want to consider the current practicality of electric tools. Quieter? Yes. Performance? Efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of getting the job completed? Slim to none. . . . especially for outer suburban areas with larger yards.
Electric backpack leaf-blowers, for example, have a typical CFM cleaning output of around 600-650, and the operator is condemned to swapping-out very expensive batteries every 25-minutes (Try selling that to commercial landscapers and lawn maintenance crews) Top gas-powered backback leaf blowers ( Stihl, RedMax, Echo, etc) have CFM cleaning of 1,100 -1,200 , and the operator replenishes the gas tank after approximately 90 – minutes – 2 hours.
With the “Tesla-fication” of lawn maintenance equipment , we cut the cleaning /clearing output in half, double the time it takes to do the job, pile-on more time required to continually replenish and charge batteries , and saddle businesses and residents with the costly expense of forklifting their yard maintenance equipment.
Oh, yes, . . . and all at a time when landscape maintenance companies can’t find workers for maintenance crews . . even at $20.00 – $25.00 an hour.
What could possibly go wrong?
The result? With bans on gas -powered tools, and mandating of electric lawn property maintenance tools only, there is a near doubling of expense to the landscaper and property owner.
Please indulge me , Mr. Roosevelt . How exactly is the Californication and Liberal Lovefest of electric devices going to benefit Southborough?
Washington Post June 30, 2021:
Lawn care is going electric. And the revolution is here to stay.
From conservative Alabama to crunchy California, electric lawn equipment is quietly sweeping the nation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/06/30/electric-lawn-care/
Quoting from the start of the article –
MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. — It was a few minutes past 6 a.m., and the sun had already started to boil the muggy Alabama air. Matt Harrison, 38, watched as his colleague backed the public works pickup truck into a parking spot alongside city hall. The two tipped the tailgate and slowly lowered a shiny orange push mower onto the pavement.
Harrison popped open the top of the mower, where a pull cord might normally be, and instead snapped two battery packs into place. Click. Click. A moment later, the low whoosh of mower blades filled the air. A slight whine from his co-worker’s electric leaf blower soon joined the din.
Passing joggers hardly noticed.
“I was kind of skeptical at first,” Harrison said after cutting the grass. Until April, he had spent his 20-year career using gas-powered lawn maintenance equipment. He worried that the electric versions wouldn’t be powerful enough, or would die too quickly. “It proved me wrong.”
From the mower and blower to weed whips and chain saws, Harrison said nothing on his truck is gas anymore. “You ain’t got to wear ear protection,” he said of the battery-powered equipment. And “you don’t have to worry about coming home smelling like gas.”
I switched to a battery-powered lawnmower, leaf blower, trimmer and chainsaw a few years ago and haven’t regretted the move. (I have a 1-acre lot.) When my snowblower breaks down I’m switching to a battery-powered one.
I got this Scholastic Records single in first grade when it came out: “Too Much Noise”
https://youtu.be/jpgwm2uwjOo?t=316
Not exactly sure what lesson it imparts, but it sure drove my parents nuts.
Why are people speaking in favor or against a “law” that hasn’t even been written? We don’t know what it’s going to say yet. There is no question in my mind the town needs a Noise Bylaw, but as I haven’t seen one proposed, I don’t know if I support it or not.