Lewes updates noise ordinance

Waiver requests to permit outdoor amplification are frequent agenda items for Lewes Mayor and City Council. The May 14 meeting contained seven waiver requests; since January 2017, 42 such requests have been heard.

Often placed at the end of the agenda, those seeking waivers are often in for a long night as council takes care of other business. 

To simplify the process and save time, council has updated its noise ordinance, giving City Manager Ann Marie Townshend the authority to decide waiver requests. 

Townshend may request council make a decision on certain applications, and any applications she denies may be appealed to council. 

The procedural change was just one piece of the noise ordinance that changed. 

The updated ordinance adds a definition of noise disturbance, which is any sound that endangers or injures the safety or health of people or animals, or annoys or disturbs a reasonable person with normal sensitivities, and jeopardizes or erodes the value of property or the environment. 

The reasonable-person approach has become the legal standard across the country, City Solicitor Glenn Mandalas said. A noise disturbance is determined by a police officer, he said. 

The update also reinstates a time frame for construction in the city – 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. It also permits construction on Saturdays between Oct. 1 and April 30 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The noise restrictions do not apply to individual homeowners working on their own property.