Since excessive noise is a serious hazard to the public health, welfare, safety and the quality of life and because a substantial body of science and technology exists by which excessive noise may be substantially abated, and because the people have a right to and should be ensured an environment free from excessive noise that may jeopardize their health, welfare or safety or degrade the quality of life, it is the policy of the City to prevent such excessive noise.
This chapter may be cited as the “Riverdale Noise Control Ordinance.” The purpose of this chapter is to establish standards for the control of noise pollution in the City by setting maximum permissible sound levels for various activities, to protect the public health, safety and general welfare. These provisions apply to the control of all noise originating within the City limits of the City or originating from properties lying outside the limits of the City owned or controlled by the City, except where either: (i) a State or federal agency has adopted a different standard or rule than that prescribed in this chapter and has so preempted the regulations of noise from a particular source as to render this chapter inapplicable; or (ii) the Council has determined that, by reason of public acceptance of the activity producing a particular noise or noises, such noise is deemed acceptable to the residents of the City.
Unless otherwise expressly stated or the context clearly indicates a different intention, the following terms have the meanings shown. Definitions of technical terms used in this chapter which are not defined may be obtained from Publication of Acoustical Terminology issued by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) — S1.1-1960, R1961, a copy of which is on file in the Clerk’s office.
1. “A-weighted sound pressure level” means the sound pressure level as measured with a sound level meter using the A-weighting network. The standard notation is dB(A) or dBA.
2. “Ambient sound pressure level” means the sound pressure level of the all-encompassing noise associated with a given environment, usually a composite of sounds from many sources. It is also the A-weighted sound pressure level which is exceeded 90 percent of the time based on a measurement period which shall not be less than 10 minutes.
3. “Continuous sound” means any sound which exists, essentially without interruption, for a period of 10 minutes or more.
4. “Cyclically varying noise” means any sound which varies in sound level such that the same level is obtained repetitively at reasonably uniform intervals of time.
5. “Decibel” means a logarithmic and dimensionless unit of measure often used in describing the amplitude of sound. Decibel is denoted as dB.
6. “Device” means any mechanism which is intended to produce, or which actually produces, noise when operated or handled.
7. “Emergency vehicle” means a motor vehicle used in response to a public calamity or to protect persons or property from an imminent exposure to danger, such as police, fire, rescue or ambulance vehicles.
8. “Emergency work” means work made necessary to restore property to a safe condition following a public calamity, or work required to protect persons or property from an imminent exposure to danger.
9. “Impulsive noise” means a noise of short duration usually less than one second, with an abrupt onset and rapid decay.
10. “Motor vehicle” means any vehicle which is self-propelled by mechanical power, including but not limited to, passenger cars, trucks, tractor-trailers, motorcycles, minibikes, go-carts and racing vehicles.
11. “Muffler” means an apparatus consisting of a series of chambers or baffle plates designed for the purpose of transmitting gases while reducing sound emanating from such apparatus.
12. “Noise disturbance” means any sound which annoys or disturbs reasonable persons with normal sensitivities or which injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, hearing, peace and safety of persons.
13. “Noise” means any sound which is unwanted or which causes or tends to cause an adverse psychological or physiological effect on human beings.
14. “Percentile sound pressure level” means: (i) the tenth percentile noise level—the A-weighted sound pressure level that is exceeded 10 percent of the time in any measurement period (such as the level that is exceeded for 1 minute in a 10-minute period) and is denoted L
10
; and (ii) the ninetieth percentile noise level—the A-weighted sound pressure level that is exceeded 90 percent of the time in any measurement period (such as the level that is exceeded for 9 minutes in a 10-minute period) and is denoted L
90
.
15. “Plainly audible noise” means any noise for which the information content of that noise is unambiguously transferred to the listener, such as but not limited to, understanding of spoken speech, comprehension of whether a voice is raised or normal, or comprehension of musical rhythms.
16. “Property boundary” means an imaginary line exterior to any enclosed structure, at the ground surface, and its vertical extension, which separates the real property owned by one person from that owned by another person.
17. “Public right-of-way” means any street, avenue, boulevard, highway or alley or similar place which is owned or controlled by a public governmental entity.
18. “Pure tone” means any sound which can be distinctly heard as a single pitch or a set of single pitches. For the purposes of measurement, a pure tone shall exist if the one-third octave band sound pressure level in the band when the tone exceeds the arithmetic average of the sound pressure levels of the two contiguous one-third octave bands by 5 dB for frequencies of 500 H
z
and by 15 dB for frequencies less than or equal to 125 H
z
.
19. “Repetitive impulsive noise” means any noise which is composed of impulsive noises that are repeated at sufficiently slow rates such that a sound level meter set at “fast” meter characteristic will show changes in sound pressure level greater than 10 dB(A).
20. “RMS sound pressure” means the square foot of the time average square of sound pressure.
21. “Sound” means a temporal and spatial oscillation in pressure, or other physical quantity, in a medium with interval forces that causes compression and rarefaction of that medium, and which propagates at finite speed to distance points.
22. “Sound level meter” means an instrument, including a microphone, amplifier, RMS detector and integrator, time averager, output meter and/or visual display and weighting networks, that is sensitive to pressure fluctuations. The instrument reads sound pressure level when properly calibrated and is type 2 or better as specified in American National Standards Institute Publication S1 4-1971 R 1976 on file in the Clerk’s office.
23. “Sound pressure” means the instantaneous difference between the actual pressure and the average or barometric pressure at a given point in space due to sound.
24. “Sound pressure level” means twenty times the logarithm to the base 10 of the ratio of the RMS sound pressure to the reference pressure, which is 20 micropascals, denoted LP or SPL.
25. “Stationary noise source” means any device, fixed or movable, which is located or used on property other than a public right-of-way.
26. “Steady noise” means a sound pressure level which remains essentially constant during the period of observation, i.e., does not vary more than 6 dB(A) when measured with the “slow” meter characteristic of a sound level meter.
27. “Use district” means those districts established by the City of Riverdale Zoning Ordinance.
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