County struggles with noise ordinance

Albemarle officials are wrestling with how to create a noise ordinance that stops residents from routinely annoying neighbors with loud parties yet doesn’t prevent boisterous children from playing in pools.
The Albemarle Board of Supervisors spent much of Wednesday morning debating what such an ordinance should like, but ultimately asked county officials to go back to the drawing board to create a better proposal.
Board Chairman David L. Slutzky said that he could foresee a headline in The Daily Progress announcing that the Board of Supervi-sors passed an ordinance that “outlaws children’s laughter,” had the board approved staff’s recommendation.

“Technically, we would be doing that,” Slutzky said.
The proposal would have prohibited residents from generating noise at night that could be heard more than 100 feet from their property, and that same level of noise would be prohibited during the day if it lasts more than five continuous minutes. There would be some exemptions, such as daytime construction.
The county’s current ordinance is more vague: Residents cannot be overly loud or disturbing. The ordinance is so subjective that officials say it’s hard to determine who’s violating it.

County attorney Larry Davis said that many localities across the state also are trying to create fair noise ordinances, but are struggling as well.
Noisiness is measured by the 100-feet criteria in many localities, according to county staff. But Supervisor Sally H. Thomas raised a scenario in which children playing loudly could violate the proposed ordinance, despite the sound being far from a nuisance to her and many other residents.
“Grouchy old people” might try to use the proposed distance criteria to prevent children from playing loudly, Thomas said with a laugh. The supervisors agreed it was a bad idea.
Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker added that a resident shouldn’t be prohibited from having a celebration at night because a daughter is getting married, for example, just because neighbors can hear sounds coming from the house.

Slutzky said that although the county should create an ordinance that prevents people from waking neighbors late at night by blaring music in their cars, it mustn’t restrict the sounds of people enjoying life.
How exactly the county is going to do that is unknown, but supervisors said that the matter needed to be examined thoroughly before any amendments are made. The county also will have to stay within constitutional parameters that prevent it from judging the content of speech.
In other business, officials agreed Wednesday to re-examine guidelines on the reimbursement of meals, travel and lodging costs. Slutzky said that he’s confident the county has consistently followed conservative guidelines dealing with reimbursements, but he said that its worthwhile to examine closely the guidelines to ensure that the county is using taxpayers’ money properly.

Slutzky said he wants to make certain the county isn’t in a situation such as the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, which recently bought a $1,623 meal for staff and consultants, including the costs of alcohol. Officials later reimbursed the RWSA for the estimated costs of alcohol, instead of using the authority’s funds.
RWSA officials say they didn’t have sound reimbursement guidelines in place prior to the meal.