SUPPPORTS ITEM NO. 1
SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
MAY 13, 1997
POLICY REPORT
ENVIRONMENT
Date: April 21, 1997
C.C. File No. 3142
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: Director of Environmental Health
SUBJECT: Urban Noise Task Force
RECOMMENDATION
A. THAT Council receive the Urban Noise Task Force report City Noise and thank the Task Force members for their work in
producing the report;
B. THAT Council adopt those recommendations designated by staff
as being readily implementable and supportable; require
reports back from staff on those with resource
implications, or which require amendments, legal input or
further consultation with impacted segments; advocate for action
by other levels of government or external agencies where the
recommended action is outside of the City s mandate; and
refrain from endorsing those recommendations which staff have
indicated are unsupportable;
C. THAT Council endorse the approach proposed in this report to
establish sector-specific work teams, consisting of
appropriate City and Vancouver Health Board staff and at least
one member of the Task Force, to refine and prioritize those
recommendations approved by Council with detailed reports back
on implementation by October 31, 1997.
CITY MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The City Manager notes that the City Noise report is very
ambitious, both in its scope and scale and in its urgency. Time
lines provided in the Implementation section ambitious, especially
given the other competing activities drawing on City staff time.
More significantly, in this period of unprecedented fiscal
restraint, the opportunity does not exist to supplement City
resources so as to accelerate what will otherwise be very slow
progress on the report s recommendations. The report will generate
very high expectations which we will be unable to meet.
Some sense of priority, both within the scope of the report and
against other City objectives needs to be realized. We need to
those noise impacts which are clear and pressing health concerns.
We need to distinguish the pathological from the aesthetic, the
persistent and unacceptable from those noise issues which might be
more occasional and tolerable. Without some sense of priority in
context with other issues (health and non-health) the City is
facing, the proposals contained in the report may take on a
priority beyond their relative importance.
To some, noise may be viewed as an inescapable consequence of
civilization and urbanization, requiring some control but also some
considerable acceptance. It is because of this reality that
dealing with noise in Vancouver will be a balancing act. Livable
neighbourhoods clearly require some quiet (and even that will be
difficult to achieve in areas of mixed use and heavy traffic) but
the moderation of noise will also need to be harmonized with other
livability objectives such as:
- creating a safe, attractive and, where appropriate, lively
public realm;
- encouraging affordable housing and historic character; and
- ensuring efficient access to the city for commerce and
recreation.
Finally, the level and cost of additional regulations is an obvious
concern and was cautioned against in the Council report that
created the Task Force. All additional regulations must be
justified by benefits which unambiguously exceed the costs - the
challenge will be in measuring these costs and benefits.
The City Manager submits Recommendation A for approval and
Recommendation B and C for consideration.
COUNCIL POLICY
City Council established the Urban Noise Task Force in March of 1996 to
establish a strategic response to urban noise issues.
The City, through the Noise By-law and Motor Vehicle Noise Abatement
By-law, establishes standards and limits for noise emissions to protect
its citizens from adverse noise impacts.
SUMMARY
The Urban Noise Task Force has, in City Noise , provided Council and
the City with a challenging and ambitious set of recommendations to
address Urban Noise into the next millennium. Staff have endeavoured to
place these 165 recommendations in the context of health impacts,
competing priorities, resource constraints and jurisdictional
restrictions and, by so doing, ensure that the work of the Task Force
will come to fruition. Staff have categorized the Task Force
recommendations as either Supportable Outright, Report Back Required,
Advocate Externally or Unsupportable and have recommended an
implementation team process.
PURPOSE
This report presents Council with the Final Report of the Urban Noise
Task Force together with an initial response from City staff on the 165
recommendations contained with the City Noise report.
BACKGROUND
In March of 1996 Council established the Urban Noise Task Force,
appointing ten citizen representatives and two Council liaisons. Over
the past year the Task Force has completed the task set out in the
initial terms of reference, produced a draft report in the summer of
1996, commissioned a public opinion poll on noise issues, solicited
public input through the media and at two October public workshops and
refined the report into the final version dated April, 1997.
DISCUSSION
The scope and magnitude of the recommendations presented in City Noise
have the potential of dissuading the City from seriously addressing any
but the most obviously supportable recommendations. Staff suggest that
what is needed is a structured prioritization of work around those
recommendations which address tangible health and livability impacts
from urban noise.
To this end staff have provided, in Appendix A, some suggestions (in
Staff Recommendations column) as to actions Council might take in
addressing each of the 165 recommendations. These recommendations fall
into four basic categories.
Support: Staff have evaluated these recommendations and feel that they
can be supported outright since they either reflect current City
policy or they are motherhood in nature and do not require any
additional resources. In some instances they may require some
re-prioritization of existing work or later implementation dates to
allow them to be fit into work programs.
Report Back: These recommendations, although generally supportable will
require reports back to Council on legality, feasibility, costs and
resource implications as well as predicted impacts on certain
stakeholder groups. Staff have attempted to minimize the number of
items requiring reports back to Council.
Advocate: In those instances where the mandate for action lies with
another level of government, government agency or external body,
staff have recommended that Council communicate with the appropriate
organizations as advocates for the recommended action.
Non-support: In a minority of cases, staff have recommended non-support
for the recommended action. Rather than generalize about the
rationale for non-support, staff have summarized below the reasons
for not supporting 23 of the Task Force recommendations.
DEPARTMENTAL COMMENTS
Departmental comments were provided by Engineering, Community Services,
Police, Environmental Health and Park Board based on the January, 1997
draft report. In general they reflected some common themes:
- Given constrained or shrinking budgets, only the most urgent of these
items will be addressed.
- The ambitious timelines set out in the Implementation section will be
hard to achieve given the competing initiatives already tugging on
staff resources.
- Many of the recommended actions proposed by the Task Force are
already in place, although perhaps not at the level or priority
placed on them by the Task Force.
- A number of the recommendations are outside of the official mandate
of the City and, if necessary, are best done by others.
- Council adoption of some of the recommendations, especially those
where the City either does not have the power or the resources to
implement them, will unnecessarily raise public expectations.
Engineering:
Many of the traffic-related and operational recommendations impact most
directly on the resources of the Engineering Department. The following
summarizes the General Manager of Engineering Services comments:
- Use of mediation should be limited to neighbour-to-neighbour
problems.
- Restrict traffic noise standards to new construction. Consideration
should be given to acoustical design on arterial streets.
- Noted that the Neighbourhood Transportation Branch was established to
deal with traffic calming issues in neighbourhoods.
- The question was raised as to who pays and who benefits when traffic
noise mitigation is proposed or installed.
- With respect to ensuring that roads are smooth for noise reduction
reasons, the current preventive maintenance programs of cracksealing
and road patching would have to be abandoned in favour of more
expensive alternatives such as full width overlays, at significant
extra costs. Given decreasing budgets the priorities have been "safe
and serviceable rather than quiet".
- Engineering Services has an ongoing program of trial implementation
of new road surface materials, including a stretch of rubberized
asphalt which has been shown to be quieter than traditional surfaces.
The trend, however, is to more durable mixes which are coarser,
generating slightly more tire noise.
- Concerns expressed about the reliance and proliferation of signage
and questions the merit of signs advising about engine brake use and
designated truck routes. Educational approaches through industry
groups are preferred.
- Concerns expressed about the proposed revisions to downtown garbage
pickup area and its impact on the ability of city crews to empty bins
and clean lanes.
- Engineering is already implementing quieter technology for garbage
bins. (This should be promoted to the private sector)
- The notion of single garbage contractors servicing specific areas of
the downtown has been raised previously for other reasons and
vehemently opposed by the private contractors.
- Engineering has experimented with alternate warning methods to
replace audible back-up beepers and found problems with reliability
and safety concerns.
- Significant concerns were expressed about the impact on City services
from the proposed restrictions on Gardening equipment use and
Construction activity. (NOTE: The existing by-law sets different
limitations for work on the street, whether it is work done by the
City or by utility companies. This was done in recognition of the
public benefit of this work, the need to get in and out of the street
quickly and the short-term nature of the work on the street.)
- Concerns were expressed about the availability of "silenced" or
sound-treated equipment for city use and the added costs.
Community Services:
The General Manager of Community Services provided concerns related
mostly to land use and development-related issues:
- With respect to the City giving consideration to acoustic aspects in
land use development, staff pointed out that in some zones this is
already in place but that this is not consistent throughout the city.
Nor is there consistent follow-up or enforcement of acoustical design
requirements and the City lacks in-house expertise on acoustical
measures. An option might be to require developers to provide
certification that acoustical requirements have been fully
implemented.
- Support for mediation in principle, provided it is limited in scope
and costs are minimized.
- Support voluntary designation of Soundmarks and Acoustic Sanctuaries
provided the already full Heritage work program is not impacted.
- Support enhancing public access to noise information and the
encouragement of voluntary compliance through common sense and
respect (actually talking to one s neighbour before phoning City
Hall).
- Support the tightening of noise standards for entertainment
facilities consistent with the Downtown Liquor Licensing Policy
review.
- Concerns expressed about the added work of developing and
implementing traffic noise impact assessment procedures.
- Concerns expressed about the proliferation of berms/sound fences and
the creation of walled communities , which might also impact on
safety initiatives such as the CPTED.
- Concerns expressed about busker limitations and the creation of
"busker police" (Note: Police are already spending time responding to
complaints about overly loud street musicians)
- Lawnmower/leafblower restrictions are likely unworkable unless City
establishes a lawnmower police . Promotion of common sense and
common courtesy can be much more effective and less costly than
difficult to enforce regulations.
Police:
The comments from the Police department basically indicated that many of
the initiatives (13.16, 13.19, 13.20, 13.22, 13.23, 14.3, 14.6, 22.1,
27.1, 36.2, 36.3) are ongoing enforcement issues and are dealt with
normally on a complaint basis as priorities permit.
The recommendations directed to the Police Department are basically
enforcement issues. Many symptoms of urban noise enforced by police are
more effectively dealt with at other levels. For example, noisy exhaust
systems are better dealt with through metered testing at stations rather
than on street enforcement. The police support the initiative of the
Task Force and the intent of the report towards improving city noise
levels. The amount of time that the police can allocate towards any one
recommendation is restricted by workload and a prioritization of police
resources.
The specific comments included:
- In section 14 of the report there is an indication that Police have
noise meters. For clarification, the Police do not have noise meters
for traffic noise enforcement.
- The Police would welcome the sharing of data on problem noise
properties with other City Departments
- With respect to house alarms, the City has a Charter amendment
request before the province on this issue. It would be useful to
monitor what Richmond is doing in this regard.
Park Board:
The General Manager of Parks & Recreation notes that the report has
covered an extensive area of influences on the amount of noise present
in the City and made many practical recommendations for positive
improvements to the problem. Where there are recommendations to change
or restrict present activities, there should be an identified budget to
ensure the transition. Specific comments included:
- The designation of acoustic sanctuaries should only be done if it s
consistent with the building use.
- The intent to designate all parks as quiet would preclude many
activities currently utilizing these parks and is not supported. Any
increase in the number of these designated parks would require the
approval of the Park Board after a community involvement process.
- The potential conflict between noise barriers and the principles of
CPTED (open and visible park space) was identified.
- The issue of licensing/approving buskers on Park Board property
should be left with the Park Board.
- The use of private radios in Park Board facilities has seldom been a
problem and a prohibition is not warranted.
- Meeting the intent of restricted times for lawn maintenance
activities at Golf Courses will be very difficult. Existing
exemptions should be continued.
- Chain saws are used by the Park Board on a regular basis, not just in
emergencies. Proposed restrictions would be unworkable and the need
for special permits would add to the administrative burden. Vancouver Health Board:
The Noise Control Officer has expressed concerns over the inherent
conflict that accompanies mixed use development, especially in the
downtown core. The expectations of new residents to these areas need to
be somehow tempered to recognize the fact that they are not living in a
purely residential community and may need to accept a somewhat
compromised level of noise. The City continues to approve new
residential uses in close proximity to noisy commercial uses such as
night clubs and entertainment areas. Initiatives such as live/work and
work/live also have the potential of generating significantly higher
levels of noise complaints.
The Environmental Health Division supports exploring the use of
mediation as a means of reducing the demand for regulation and legal
action. The experiences of Edmonton and Portland s Neighbourhood
Mediation Centre should be investigated and the mediation option pursued
as an option rather than an adjunct to regulation.
Many of the recommendations proposed by the Task Force will entail major
revisions to the Noise By-law. When these amendments are reported to
Council, the Division will take the opportunity to bring forward
additional suggested or necessary changes not already covered by the
Task Force.
The Division supports the notion of progressive enforcement and the
increased use of tickets to deal with noise offences. The Division is
also prepared to ensure that evening quick response coverage is
available for noise complaints of an emergency nature.
IMPLEMENTATION AND COMMUNICATION
Implementation of the recommendations accepted by Council will be a
challenge given the number and complexity of initiatives. Therefore, it
is recommended that the adopted recommendations be packaged into
sector-specific groups, consistent with the major chapter groupings of
the report, for implementation purposes. For those actions requiring
further work and a report back to Council, it is recommended that
implementation teams be formed around the major topic areas and that
these teams consist of the appropriate City and VHB staff and at least
one member of the Task Force. These teams would be responsible for
refining the specific proposals, gathering the necessary information on
costs and resource implications and preparing a report back to Council,
through the City/VHB staff person, by October 31, 1997. At this point
it is suggested that there be no more than four implementation teams
focusing on Traffic/Transportation/Signals;
Home/Recreational/Maintenance; Industrial/Construction noise and
Education. The Director of Environmental Health should be responsible
for overall coordination of implementation plans.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Staff have evaluated the recommendations of the Task Force against the
reality of no additional resources. Adoption of items that have
inferred cost or staffing implications will necessitate the
identification of external or new sources of funding to support them.
SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Noise is recognized by the City and the City Noise report as a stressor
and a public health issue. Reduction in overall noise and individual
noise events has been shown to have a beneficial effect on the health of
individuals and the well-being of society.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS
If, as the City Noise report states, noise is the silent environmental
issue of the 1990s, then the proposed activities set out in the report
should contribute to the amelioration of the sound environment and the
reduction of the negative impacts of urban noise on the natural
environment.
CONCLUSION
The Urban Noise Task Force has provided Council with a comprehensive
wish list or blueprint of initiatives that could be taken to improve
and protect Vancouver s soundscape and the aural and psychological
health of our residents. A well-thought out implementation program is
needed to ensure that the majority of these initiatives come to
fruition.
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