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KITTITAS COUNTY <br />DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS <br />PUBLIC WORKS — BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS <br />2023 STUDY SESSION STAFF REPORT <br />STUDY SESSION DATE: October 9, 2023 <br />TOPIC: Noise Ordinance Update <br />ACTION REQUESTED: Direct Staff <br />LEAD STAFF: <br />Mark R. Cook. <br />RECOMMENDATION: <br />Direct staff. <br />BRIEFING SUMMARY: <br />• Deputy Prosecuting Attorney (DPA) Hartung has completed a review of the <br />county's noise ordinance against state requirements. <br />• Local governments are not required to adopt state standards (numeric decibel - <br />based systems). <br />• Any change to the County's ordinance is purely voluntary. <br />• Will changing to a decibel -based system create more staff workload and cost? <br />BACKGROUND: <br />Responding to a commissioner request, staff researched noise ordinances in the State of <br />Washington in addition to verifying Department of Ecology noise standards. Staff <br />presented results to the Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) on September 18, 2023. <br />DPA Hartung was in attendance and agreed to provide follow-up legal services. DPA <br />Hartung recently prepared a memorandum presenting the results of her work (attached as <br />EXHIBIT 1). <br />DISCUSSION: <br />Staff previously represented our concern over compliance in the wake of the recent order <br />of invalidity from the Growth Hearings Management Board on the Mardee Lake non - <br />project rezone matter. The analysis provided by DPA Hartung suggests that the staff <br />concerns are not material in the matter of the county's current noise ordinance being <br />compliant with state law. Given Ms. Hartung's analysis, it seems that any amendment to <br />our current ordinance (Chapter 9.45) will be completely voluntary in nature and not <br />required by state law. The matter for discussion is whether there is a need sufficient <br />enough to offset the workload amending the current ordinance. It is reasonable to assume <br />moving to decibel standard (used by the state and many WA counties), will add code <br />enforcement costs and could lead to neighbors using the county to mitigate neighborhood <br />disputes. <br />Page 1 of 3 <br />Public Works "Work Session Staff Report", 2023 <br />