HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-03-04-NAC-min
Town of Lexington, MA
Noise Advisory Committee (NAC)
Minutes of Meeting, March 4, 2025
The meeting of the Noise Advisory Committee (“NAC”) was held in person and on Zoom in the
Select Board Room of the Town Office Building on Tuesday March 4, 2025, at 7 PM.
NAC Members Present: Barbara Katzenberg (BK), Chair, Sallye Bleiberg (SB), Benjamin Lees
(BL), Laura Rosen (LR), Elaine Rudell (ER)
N/A: Joe Pato (JP), Select Board Liaison
Guest: Christian Miller (CM), City Planner, Rye, NY (online)
1. Announcements
BK called the meeting to order at 7:05 PM, and LR was assigned as clerk for this meeting.
2. Christian Miller, City Planner of Rye, NY
Mr. Miller, who oversees the Rye building department, discussed that town’s approach to
controlling the impact of blasting and ledge work during construction. The town bylaws control
the times when rock removal noise can take place rather than noise level, since rock removal
just can’t be kept quiet. He made the analogy with free speech regulation – government can’t
regulate the content of speech but can regulate the “time, place, and manner” of speech.
Section 8 of their code has been changed 7 times since 2003. It started with regulating
construction hours, not rocks specifically. Rye is one of the smallest cities in NY state, but the
density is greater than Lexington. Most of their lots are < 10,000 SF, and there were lots of
teardowns. The city council tasks his committee with creating the law, holding public hearings,
passing the law. Work has to be conducted between 9:30-3:30 on weekdays, and not on
weekends or holidays. Residents call when it’s 5 minutes past time, so there is great sensitivity.
The 38 days limit was arrived at by “professional judgment”, which means “we made it up”. A lot
of registration and notice is required to make construction noise, and there are other restrictions
if you’re within 500 feet of a school. That meant the committee had to know and post about all
school testing days, which was challenging to administrate. Their office has a “Rock Registry”
and holds every rock removal permit since 2015, which is a lot of paper. The town is now up to
3 building inspectors.
In 2020 Rye stopped all rock work during the testing days for COVID. When everyone was
home schooling, noise sensitivity got even more intense. Rock removal went up as people left
NYC and moved to the suburbs. Everyone wanted a pool – they were installing 25 a year.
They have a law that says a building’s first floor elevation can’t be more than 3 feet above the
grade, to keep big new houses from appearing to pop out. Some people think that law is
contributing to rock removal issues, because new home builders have to dig deeper to get full
height ceilings in basements in this wealthy community. There is very aggressive development
going on – spurred not by builders but by homeowners who want it all.
In 2022, the rock removal law was taken out of the noise chapter of the bylaws. People saw
construction noise limited to 85 dBA and knew that rock removal was going higher. We took
rock removal out of noise bylaw and no longer regulate the noise for that. We got people with
seismographs to measure the vibration form rock removal and blasting, since we didn’t have a
blasting ordinance. We didn’t have things like peak particle velocity specified in the code (the
standard is 2.0). We’re now down to 11 days of rock chipping, but there are a lot of exceptions.
Chipping is a way of excavating the rock without blasting, which they only get about 3 times a
year. Blasting is far less disruptive – they had a professor guiding the town to stagger the
blasts, which is an involved process including all the pre-blast surveys. They just limit the
number of days someone can blast, not the hammer size, but to complete the job in time they
end up having to use bigger machines. Smaller chippers make different noise – different
decibels, pitch, and frequency. The limit for chipping is 11 days, and blasting is 45 days. He
doesn’t want any further limitation because he doesn’t want to encourage risky practices to
make a deadline. They did have an event when a larger explosion occurred than was planned,
but thankfully no one was hurt. They prefer the smaller, local blasting companies, since bigger
companies need to make money by getting the job done quickly. They still have to pre-drill –
even for chipping – and then hit with a hammer or pneumatic rock splitters – machines with 8
hoses (“Dr. Octopus”) that clamps onto, expands, and then cracks the rock.
The only thing the city council didn’t get right was about notice. They had the idea that people
could plan their lives around their neighbors’ rock removal. The 11 days for rock removal have
to be timed perfectly around holidays and expected weather. This is the only permit they issue
where the applicant doesn’t want it granted right away, so they can’t give any certainty to their
neighbors about when the work will start. There is a fight for the permit queue, which is
completely digitally operated. All the permits are submitted by email – that’s the time stamp.
There are 11 calendar days allowed, including weekends – so that’s already at least two days
off. Also, no one else within 750 feet of that property can chip or blast for 60 days. Given this is
such a dense community, he’s surprised this conflict hasn’t come up more often, but so far it’s
only been an issue once.
BK noted that there are now two projects in a very ledge-intensive area of Concord Ave that
would have to coordinate with each other and with separate owners if Lexington were to
implement that rule.
Rye had a consultant who assisted the city in preparing the rock removal law and has helped
with noise mitigation technologies. There have been a lot of exemptions – including geothermal
installation.
LR asked about the public reaction to these ordinances. CM said the first one in 2015 with 38
days had a lot of public engagement, but over the years there has been less, since everyone is
going to end up being an applicant in Rye. Enforcement is handled by the building department,
which looks for compliance, not inflicting penalties.
BK asked if it was possible to do blasting in the denser areas without surrounding damage, and
CM noted their pre-blast surveys, which they sometimes must ask for twice if people reject it at
first. He has heard anecdotal complaints but not strong evidence that superficial cracks in older
homes are not even covered. They keep their shocks low – 2.0 is a federal highway standard –
and they haven’t cracked any foundations that he knows of.
BK asked if there were public pushbacks on the 11 days limit, and CM said there were, but
that’s where the exemptions came in. The law allows for 3-day exemptions, which are usually
used for utilities. They got a consultant for the most recent law, since the blasting law is
technical. There are so many technologies available, but they had to say what was realistic.
In NYC they just put a muzzle around a hammer – noise matting – which has to be close to the
source. That would be difficult for Rye to enforce, and he wouldn’t necessarily recommend
them. His advice was to just keep trying things out to fit your community.
3. Meeting with Police Chief McLean and Captain Barry on nose complaints
SB reviewed her and BK’s meeting with Police Chief McLean and Captain Barry on noise
complaints, which was very collegial. The new Compliance Officer has been hired: Susan Kale.
They are excited she has joined and noted she will need a little time to get up to speed. The
NAC can meet with her in the future to hear how the noise bylaw adherence is going.
BK said that Captain Barry showed her their database. Code 455 relates to the gas-powered
leaf blower (GPLB) bylaw, which had 50 documented complaints last year. There is another
code for general noise complaints. The dispatcher documents a caller’s issue, and police
officers themselves can also enter data into the system, but these are few and far between.
When Susan Kale comes on staff, we should see more documentation of violations.
4. Public comments – There we no public comments.
5. Approval of minutes
After being duly moved and seconded, a motion to approve the February minutes was
unanimously approved.
6. Adjourn
After being duly moved and seconded, a motion to adjourn @ 8:15 pm was unanimously
approved.
Respectfully submitted, Laura Rosen