Discussions were initiated at the Dana Point City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 16, to start reviewing and updating certain ordinances involving noise control around the city. No action was taken, as it was only daylighting the ordinance, and a first reading is planned for a future meeting.
The City Council has prioritized reviewing and updating all City of Dana Point Municipal Codes in accordance with one of their goals for the year following the fostering of economic health and prosperity – specifically, the objective to provide effective and efficient zoning regulations for managing the city’s land use.
The specific ordinance they are targeting is part of Chapter 11.10, which is related to noise control. It has been updated by city staff and brought to the council for review. The noise control ordinance was first adopted in 1992 and has undergone only one minor amendment since.
The purpose of the ordinance is to control unnecessary, excessive, and unusual sounds in the city, as well as to safeguard public health, welfare and safety, and to uphold the public interest. The ordinance includes exterior and interior noise standards for residential properties, the city's methods for determining exceedance of the noise standard, and exempt activities.
The noise ordinances and priority codes were discussed during the meeting because of the hotel worker strike last summer at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Dana Point, which caused many disturbances for locals.
“There's no reason to shy away from it; we are bringing this forward because of the strike,” said Patrick Muñoz, the City Attorney. “There were multiple issues that law enforcement wanted to address, we had complaints from residents wanting us to address, and we had complaints from visitors wanting us to address. But our noise ordinance really wasn't an adequate way to do it.”
The strike, which later was resolved in an agreement with Marriott, caused an uproar in the district overseen by Councilmember Mike Frost.
“This is a quality-of-life issue. We had an issue that we couldn't solve for eight months. Staff had to deal with hundreds of calls,” Frost said. “While I respect your right to protest, I can't fathom we would say, ‘Oh, you can ruin somebody's quality of life if you're in a labor dispute, but not if you're doing this.’
“I want staff to go forward with ensuring a method for a quality of life for our people in residential communities, but also put a caveat to ensure that it does not go above and beyond labor's right to protest directly to the business upon which they have issues.”
With most of the council agreeing to make the caveat toward the First Amendment right to assembly, it is also important to them that it does not directly affect their citizens' quality of life.
Both staff and Muñoz are recommending changes, including the inclusion of exterior and interior noise standards specific to residential portions of mixed-use developments, a method for measuring noise levels as it pertains to the location where the measurement is being taken, and determining when construction is necessary during the hours of 8 p.m. to 7 a.m., exempting the related noise source(s).
Staff also recommended that regulations be established for determining when any loud, unnecessary, or unusual noise would be considered a public nuisance, as defined in Section 6.14 of the municipal codes. Any changes will be provided for the council’s consideration when this item returns for a first reading in a future meeting.