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Friday, February 10, 2012
Downtown neighbors seek quiet, protest loud trucks
by Kathleen Haley, published on December 16, 2009 at 8:39 PM
Storyline: City Services
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Several residents in the Alkali Flat and Mansion Flats neighborhoods downtown are tired of being awakened at odd hours.
They’re asking a local solid waste agency to tighten the rules for the operating hours of private garbage trucks.
About 20 people in the neighborhood want private trash haulers to start work later in the morning. The Sacramento Regional Solid Waste Authority, which oversees private waste haulers in both the city and county, allows trucks to travel through neighborhoods starting at 6 a.m.
Alkali Flat and Mansion Flats residents want to change the rules so that private waste trucks would not operate until “full daylight hours” or 7:30 a.m.
"[Noise from the trucks] wakes us up and also shakes our homes," said Jennifer Caldwell, who lives in the neighborhood.
Caldwell and her neighbors have written a letter to Sacramento County's Department of Waste Management and Recycling. “The 6 a.m. language is insufficient as the trucks are running when it is dark out (currently 6 a.m. and prior),” the letter states. “The objective is to make it clear that no trucks are to be in residential areas at night. Routes should not begin until after dawn.”
The neighbors contend that private waste trucks are operating earlier than city waste vehicles. “City waste collection crews do not begin until 7:30 or so in our area,” according to the letter.
The neighborhood is also concerned about early-morning noise from leaf blowers. The city’s noise ordinance bans leaf blowers before 9 a.m. Monday to Saturday, and prior to 10 a.m. on Sunday.
Sacramento Code Enforcement Operations Manager Ron O’Connor said enforcement staffers will respond to complaints about leaf blower use “if there’s a pattern” of noise ordinance violations.
The city's 311 service handles all of the complaints that are sent to the Code Enforcement Department, O’Connor said.
To complain about leaf blowers and private garbage trucks operating before their scheduled times, call 311 by phone. Residents can also e-mail 311 at 311@cityofsacramento.org
Photo by David Watts Barton
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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The comment. "...And yes, most of us rise w/ the sun...." is hard to believe. Really? I do not think most people go to work late in the winter.
I would think that if someone seeks a peaceful and quiet setting to live, downtown might not be your best pick. We love the bustle and activity, and we understand that noise comes with it. If we wanted complete quiet, we would live in the country, something in-between might be the suburbs (gag). Unreasonable noise sounds unreasonable., but quiet is not going to happen.
This is not an either/or argument. That attitude is used to try to tell Midtowners they "don't know where they live...."
There is a middle ground and there are regulations, intended to provide some balance and keep Midtown livable. It is not unreasonable to expect those regulations to be followed and enforced.
As for rights, see Advocate's comment below about "Constitutional right to Quiet Enjoyment of Property." Regulations are built upon that.
I do not think people "do not know where they live". Turn off the TV and listen in silence, there is lots of stuff going on out there. The bulk of the noise you get downtown is from the existance of others. Car doors slamming, car alarms, passing trains, drunk fights, shopping carts, police and fire sirens, big trucks, racing cars and motorcycles, etc are all part of the program I knowingly sign up for when l elect to live in the urban enviorment. I have no illusion that is will not be present, and I would not wish it away.
Call SWA. Record the calls. Expect results.
"8.68.200 Specific unlawful noises. E. Tools. The use or operation between the hours of ten p.m. and seven a.m. of any power saw, power planer, or other powered tool or appliance or saw or hammer, or other tool, so as to disturb the quiet, comfort, or repose of persons in any dwelling, hotel, motel, apartment, or other type of residence, or of any person in the vicinity." from Title 8 HEALTH AND SAFETY > Chapter 8.68 NOISE CONTROL > Article III General Noise Regulations.
"8.68.180 Portable gasoline-powered blowers. A. It is unlawful for any person to operate any portable gasoline-powered blower on residential property or within two hundred (200) feet of residential property, except between the hours of nine a.m. and six p.m. Monday through Saturday and between the hours of ten a.m. and four p.m. on Sunday." from Title 8 HEALTH AND SAFETY > Chapter 8.68 NOISE CONTROL > Article II Noise Standards
Waste disposal vehicles are rated by noise level produced, and there seems to be no specific prohibition of that type of vehicle (except by the level of noise that it produces).
8.68.130 Waste disposal vehicles. "It is unlawful for any person authorized to engage in waste disposal service or garbage collection to operate any truck-mounted waste or garbage loading and/or composting equipment or similar mechanical device in any manner so as to create any noise exceeding the following level, when measured at a distance of fifty (50) feet from the equipment or any agricultural or residential property."
Why don't you tell the garbage workers or the trains passing by to keep it down out there too? I can't believe this.
That being said, after staying at a friends and being awoken (and scared) by a garbage truck that sounded like it was plowing directly into the building, I feel residents' pain and can understand their frustration.
There is a "gentleman's agreement" between the City and the private haulers, who are legally allowed to leave their lots at 4:00 am (and sometimes comes earlier), that they will stay out of residential areas in Midtown until 6 am.
Residents will discover their most effective phone calls go to the County SWA, which is required to take action upon receiving a certain number of complaints in a six month period.
ABC knows it well, however, the city of Sacramento has an abysmal record of stating that in its noise codes and enforcing what lame codes it does have. This right is over a century old--county apparently is not any better. In fact most employees of either government don't even know that right exists, including city council members and board of supervisors members.
The only way to really resolve this is to do what the disabled folks did when they sued the city on failure to install handicap ramps. That was a mobility rights issue; the courts agreed. If the aggrieved can prove that their right has been violated, the courts will apply that constitutional right.
Google that phrase and you will see hundreds of court decisions upholding that right over the decades under various circumstances. I never found a case on private garbage haulers, however. So perhaps its time has come in view of the city and county's bumbling.
Our residential Alkali Flat neighborhood is a mixture of single family homes, duplexes, fourplexes and apartments, many of which are beautifully restored Victorians. I was involved in the effort to have leafblowers banned in the 1990's, but we settled for City promises of better enforcement, quieter blowers, etc. Now these noisy bliowers are rampant again.
As a professional health educator, I see this pervasive and non-compliant use of leafblowers as primarily a public heath issue. We already have many days of bad air or air "termed "Unhealthy for sensitive groups (including those with asthma, heart disease and young chiildren). The current and more persistent use of these gasoline blowers, commonly known as "dirt blowers" in our neighborhood, is dangerous to the lungs and to the health of our residential comunity. I say, ban them...which has been done in a number of California communities.
It will be enforced, if neighbors do the work, make the calls. Sometimes contacting the violator directly works. Many people don't know there is an ordinance or think the start time is 7:30 instead of 9.