Jackhammering agreement raises ire of some South Burlington neighbors

This story by Liberty Darr was first published by The Other Paper on Aug. 8.

From jackhammering and construction to pickleball and hedge trimmers, some councilors in South Burlington are looking to strike a balance with noise pollution in a city that is increasingly expanding from a suburban environment to an urban one.

The issues boiled over at a city council meeting last year when construction on a new housing development in South Burlington prompted a wider examination of the city’s public nuisance ordinance after residents who live close to the site said that near-constant jackhammering on the property clearly violated city law.

For months, construction crews had been using jackhammers to chip away at bedrock to build basements and water and sewer infrastructure for new homes on Long Drive.

Neighbors in the area flooded a city council meeting in October over noise they called “incessant” and “unbearable.” The hammering continued, they said, for at least eight hours a day and had been going on during the warm months since at least 2020.

While the jackhammering hasn’t been present this summer, different types of noise associated with construction have continued to be a problem for residents in the area, and with more development coming down the pipeline, neighbors are continuing to urge councilors to make changes.

“I would urge the council to try and do something specifically about the construction noise before we get into construction season next time,” Beth Zigmund said. “There are five lots left on the Long Drive parcel, and I don’t think anyone knows how much ledge is still there.”

Resident Lisa Angwin said even hearing the word jackhammering prompts a visceral reaction after the years she spent dealing with it. The lack of action, she said, ultimately sends a message that gives more rights to builders but neglects the health of the city’s residents.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what I will do if that jackhammering starts again,” she said. “But I think as a community, we will be rivaling back. I can tell you that, because we can’t handle it.”

On the other hand, new South Burlington resident John Allen and his family have been trying to move into their home on Long Drive for the past three years. He said that he and his family had no idea how “challenging, crazy and disappointing,” it would be to try and build a home on this property.

“We’re constituents too, and we bought the land, there was an expectation that we could build a house, and in the middle of building this, this all came up,” he said. “We’ve kind of put regulation and regulation on top of this that has now hurt the entire community. I think we’re going to see more of this in other areas. Many houses were built over the years and there was noise, and now there’s a new community coming in, and new people coming in, and the feeling that we got was not very welcoming as new members of South Burlington.”

In an effort to remedy some of the issues, councilors Andrew Chalnick and Laurie Smith drafted some potential mitigation efforts the city could add to its current nuisance ordinance, including daytime decibel noise measurement standards, a phase-out of small gas engines like leaf blowers, hedge trimmers and weed whackers, and rethinking the city’s performance standards associated with its land use regulations and the nuisance ordinance.

“We did a lot of research, and it seems like the majority of municipalities around the country have an objective decibel metric for noise, and most of our neighboring communities have an objective decibel rating standard for daytime noise,” Chalnick said. “Our ordinances already have decibel ratings for nighttime noise, but for some reason don’t have daytime noise.”

But not all council members agreed with that approach. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, while she recognizes that there may be a serious issue, has a “fundamental issue” with the role of councilors doing the work to modify ordinances.

“I don’t have the expertise to develop language for you all to consider relative to an ordinance, and I do not believe I was elected to do that. I’m not compensated as a city employee,” she said. “I believe we have experts on staff that if this is a priority for the council, we should be directing those experts to develop a recommendation that we can respond to.”

City mitigation

To mitigate some of the issues in the short term, City Manager Jessie Baker entered an agreement in May between the city and builders of a single-family home property on Long Drive, Sunstone Builders LLC, as it pertains to chipping and jackhammering noise on the property.

The agreement says that chipping or other similar activities should not exceed a total of 24 hours over three days, limits work to Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., and requires notification of landowners within 500 feet of the work site 48 hours prior to work beginning.

Builders must also include an offer to pay for the temporary relocation of those residents to select hotels nearby. Funds in the amount of $6,000 must be placed in escrow before the 48-hour notice.

Some residents have objected to the agreement saying that Baker overstepped her authority by entering an agreement without first consulting the council.

“I consider it to be a really outrageous agreement that was signed by Jessie Baker regarding one of the properties on Long Drive, which basically allows the developer to violate the nuisance ordinance,” Beth Zigmund said.

The council went into an executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss pending and probable litigation, specifically on enforcement actions related to the nuisance ordinance.

After the meeting, Baker told The Other Paper that she will be addressing the agreement further at the start of the Aug. 19 meeting, but one council member has already voiced support for the city’s leader.

“I’m going to just say a vote of support for our city manager Jessie Baker, who made an executive decision and the rationale that she had for it that makes sense from a tactical standpoint for protecting the neighborhood,” Smith said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Jackhammering agreement raises ire of some South Burlington neighbors .