Noise ordinance exempts seven locations
Noise regulations the Hot Springs Board of Directors adopted Tuesday night won’t apply during the hours of 8 a.m. to midnight at the amphitheater a local developer wants to build on the Majestic Hotel site.
The Majestic, the 6,000-capacity outdoor entertainment venue R.A. Wilson Enterprises has proposed for the vacant lot the city owns on Park Avenue, is one of seven exempted locations, joining Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, Hot Springs Convention Center, Bank OZK Arena, Magic Springs Theme and Water Park, Transportation Depot and Plaza and Hot Springs Farmers & Artisans Market.
The locations will be subject to the ordinance’s regulations from midnight to 8 a.m., but the regulations won’t apply from 8 a.m. to midnight.
The draft ordinance the board tabled last month exempted music events held at venues with architectural and landscape features designed to sequester sound. The ordinance adopted Tuesday night specified exempted locations.
The board accepted R.A. Wilson’s $2,163,128 offer for the Majestic site in July. The real estate contract it adopted gave the company a 180- to 270-day due diligence period to determine the feasibility of an amphitheater on the 5 acres that have sat idle since 2006. The property is in escrow until the sale closes. R.A. Wilson’s $100,000 deposit becomes nonrefundable at the end of due diligence.
R.A. Wilson President/CEO Rick Wilson told the board earlier this summer that sound engineers he has contracted assured him sound won’t encroach on neighboring properties, a claim Whittington Valley Neighborhood Association President Mark A. Toth told the board Wilson won’t have to honor under the new sound ordinance.
“I am vehemently opposed to ex
empting the amphitheater,” he told the board. “You had a man stand up here and promise that you wouldn’t be able to hear it across the street, and you’re just going to write that man a blank check. The minute you pass that ordinance, he no longer has to take any effort to mitigate the noise. That noise is going to reverberate up Park Avenue.”
Toth asked the board to table the ordinance.
“I think it would be fair and proper to simply put this back until the next board meeting,” he said. “Actually publish what you’re going to vote on. Let the public see it, so they can make an informed comment.”
District 5 Director Karen Garcia’s motion to table it failed to advance to the floor for debate. The emergency clause included in the draft ordinance was removed, so the new regulations won’t take effect until 30 days from Tuesday’s board meeting.
Garcia’s motion to retain the draft ordinance’s permitted times for disruptive noise from construction sites did advance to the floor, but she was the only director to vote for the amendment. The draft ordinance prohibited “plainly audible and disruptive” noise at construction sites from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. The adopted ordinance’s prohibited times run from sunset to sunrise.
The noise ordinance the board adopted in 2001 applied the “plainly audible and disruptive” standard to all locations, a threshold City Attorney Brian Albright said was too subjective. The ordinance adopted Tuesday repealed the 2001 law and established acceptable noise levels based on decibels measured at the boundary of the property where the noise originates.
Albright said the new ordinance will help the city enforce the short-term residential rental regulations the board adopted in May. The city issued STR licenses for almost 400 properties in areas zoned for residential use prior to the moratorium that took effect at the end of May. Noise was one of the issues residents who live next to STRs raised during public input sessions the city hosted during the run-up to the STR ordinance’s adoption.
Noise from “the use of any device or apparatus for the amplification of sound” can reach 70 decibels from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. in areas zoned for residential use. It can reach 85 decibels from 8 a.m. to midnight in nonresidential zones and 90 decibels in the central business district, or C-1, zone from 8 a.m. to midnight.
Up to 60 decibels are allowed during nighttime hours established for residential, nonresidential and C-1 zones.
“There’s no differential between weekends, weekdays,” Albright told the board. “We’re trying to keep it as simple as possible, not only for enforcement purposes but for community education and knowledge.”
He said ambient sound levels during business hours averaged between 40 to 50 decibels citywide, according to readings the police department recorded at numerous locations.