Action delayed on airport noise

Four more months.

That's how long it will be before the Clark County Commission revisits a proposed ordinance to amend the noise level maps around McCarran International Airport and Nellis Air Force Base.

The commission voted unanimously Wednesday to hold off a decision on the ordinance until Sept. 16, after spending three hours debating the issue with a handful of people who live around the airport.

However, the board did approve a safety zone around the area where the Air Force conducts live ordinance loading operations.

The handful of residents around McCarran still had problems with the ordinance even after the county removed all the disclosure and soundproofing requirements that didn't apply to new construction.

Commissioner Mary Kincaid recommended eliminating the disclosure requirement altogether since state law already requires sellers to tell prospective buyers about noise and other problems.

Not present at the hearing were large commercial property owners and home builders who would be affected by the amended ordinance.

Several times as their comments drifted into other matters, Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, who represents many of the people affected by the proposed changes, asked residents how the ordinance affected them if the disclosure and attenuation requirements were removed.

Some residents said the changes swept them into the airport environs overlay, which outlines a range of noise levels starting at 60 decibels caused by jets taking off and landing, which would lower their property values.

Others just wanted the commission to do something about the noise.

Jacob Snow, an assistant planning director at McCarran, thought he had already addressed residential concerns by eliminating the disclosure and attenuation requirements for existing homeowners.

"We wanted to get a revised ordinance passed to require new residential construction to prospective buyers and attenuation for sound on new construction," Snow said after the hearing. "We think people have a right to be informed."

Instead the board instructed Snow and airport staff to poll homeowners in the affected area to see if they want the airport to pay to retrofit their homes to eliminate the sound.

Snow said the airport has always had the authority to spend the $3-5 million it receives from the federal government each year on sound attenuation, but the County Commission's policy has been to use that money to buy out homeowners affected by airport noise.

Retrofitting a house at a cost of $20,000 would only have a limited impact on a household's noise levels, Snow said.

"The board has to consider putting all that money toward a nominal noise decrease," Snow said. "The advantages to soundproofing in a desert climate are limited."

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