When rock chipping, at intolerable decibel levels, occurs for months unabated in a neighborhood, does it prompt alarm and consternation in other neighborhoods? In Rye it does.

By Robin Jovanovich

When rock chipping, at intolerable decibel levels, occurs for months unabated in a neighborhood, does it prompt alarm and consternation in other neighborhoods? In Rye it does.

After awakening to the sounds of “ear-splitting” jack hammering, and what effectively was rock crushing, for weeks this summer because of construction of a new home on Highland Road, Indian Village residents contacted the Mayor and City Council, the developer, and the Building Department. They explained that they were unable to carry on a conversation on a sidewalk, their backyards, and even their kitchens. Residents asked how much longer the noise would be allowed to continue (the builder had estimated it would take a month, not the seven it did take).

A long chain of emails went back and forth to City officials. As the number grew, residents from other neighborhoods asked to add their names to those who are concerned about quality of life issues related to residential building in Rye.

At the beginning of October, residents, led by Mal Durkee, addressed the Council. At the same meeting, Mayor Joe Sack invited the builder, David Turiano, to speak. Turiano promised that the chipping would stop by October 30. (It stopped last week.) The Mayor created a citizen’s rock-chipping committee. At the time, he estimated that a report would be made public by the end of 2014. It is still in the works.

Meanwhile, what the City decides it can do — and will do — to lessen the impact (“assault” as one resident described it) of new construction on neighborhoods is on the community’s mind and they want to know whether we can strengthen our noise ordinance to prevent projects, like the one on Highland, in the future, and restrict development that necessitates more than a week, or at most a month, of rock hammering. A good suggestion was proffered by Adele Centanni, who lives on Greenleaf Street in the Beaumont Park neighborhood next to Loudon Woods. “Perhaps we should disallow rock chipping for basements.”  

At its January 22 meeting, the Conservation Commission/Advisory Council made the point that if the City had had a steep slope ordinance in place, which they are in the process of recommending, the Highland Road project would not have been permitted. Chair Carolyn Cunningham said Rye could copy one of the existing municipal ordinances in Westchester that member Tracy Stora collected: Mt. Pleasant (2007), adding several provisions from Somers Steep Slopes permit form. The CCAC also recommended the City require a start and finish date for construction activity and that the contractor be required to control noise and dust.

The Rock Chipping Committee asked resident Steve Kilroy, an audio engineer, to take a series of sound pressure level measurements at the Highland Road site. According to his report, “sound levels from the rock chipper were consistently in the 87-90 dbA range at 150 feet from the rock chipper (across the street), with peaks in the mid- to high 90dbA range. This is well above the threshold at which hearing damage can occur with exposure of 2-4 hours.” 

As Mendota Avenue resident Holly Kennedy wrote in a memo to the City Council February 2, “When you reread the City Code, you note a theme relating to basic community standards regarding noise. What you find codified in the noise chapter is two basic principles: common decency and safety. The codified approach to regular noise is ‘Do not disturb persons in any dwelling … in such a manner or with such volume as to create noise in excess of the sound-pressure levels.” 

Kennedy goes on to ask the Council not to allow our community “to be literally chipped away.”