by Zachary Harmuth
One thing became clear at Monday night ‘s Brentwood City Commission meeting: if nothing else the city sits inside a Russian doll of community conflict over several connected issues.
In the public hearing portion of the meeting, in a packed hearing room at the Brentwood Municipal Center, attending residents made it clear they hold serious concerns about a proposed noise ordinance.
But really, the brouhaha surrounding the noise ordinance is wrapped in the bigger issue of a planned, and Brentwood Planning Commission approved, Harley-Davidson dealership in Mallory Park off Mallory Road.
Of course, the Harley-Davidson hub bub fits into the broader issue of Brentwood’s 2020 Plan and how the city sees itself developing.
And that locks into the universal question of the identity of a community, and the balance between preserving the past and building the future . . . the issues, felt in every community, of development and identity.
Of knowing when to draw the line.
Of finding the point where development comes at the cost of identity, rather than reinforcing it.
(A similar issue is playing itself out now in the county at large, with protests of development on Old Hillsboro Road.)
With all this in the air, at the very least Monday night an undertone of existentialism- and of existential threat- colored comment after comment coming from residents who stood at a blond wood dais looking up at the panel of commissioners.
Many spoke; the public hearing was strictly for comments specifically about the proposed noise ordinance. But, as Brentwood mayor Betsy Crossley’s need for repeated reminders of this suggested, the public clearly had more on its mind than just a noise ordinance.
Indeed, they cared about the context of that ordinance, which is a longer story.
That of the Harley-Davidson dealership being built on Mallory, near several large subdivisions. And like most of their dealerships, it planned originally to host several events a month that would include music and motorcycles and generally create a lot of noise. Due to public resistance, the planning commission passed the proposal in March on the condition that Harley receive case-by-case approval from the Commission for its events. As a result, Harley-Davidson decided not to follow through on plans to build a stage for the events.. The bottom line being that, despite prolonged protest from residents living near the planned dealership, it has final approval and will be built.
Some, perhaps most, of the people who spoke did so to voice frustration with the situation at large. One resident accused the Commissioners of hypocrisy, for warning at meetings of the risk of unintended consequences then voting without much regard to what they might be.
Linda Travis, who lives in a neighboring subdivision, said she would call the police to report a violation every time she heard a motorcycle from the dealership- she felt the dealerships location would be that loud and disruptive.
So, amidst the uproar over the dealership, the Brentwood City Commission decided to update its noise ordinance. At the first of two readings before final approval, it approved in March the proposed noise ordinance, which allows businesses to apply for special permits to exceed its allowed decibels. One concern voiced at the Monday meeting by more than one person, was a perceived ambiguity in the ordinance.
What would the criteria be, asked residents, the process, for deciding when to- and when not to- issue special permits? The feeling being that the ordinance should explicitly set parameters for allowing permission to break it.
The new noise ordinance makes 70 decibels the standard noise maximum in commercial areas that affect residential zones. The current ordinance applies a 70 decibel max only to commercial areas directly adjacent to a residential area. The amendment also limits the hours of deliveries to businesses next to residential zones from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
One of the more informative, and therefore informed, resident comments about the ordinance came from Brentwood resident and retired sound engineer Eric Hoke. He said that most local noise ordinances around the country put the cut off at 60 , not 70, decibels. That, in terms of longterm exposure, the EPA says that the threshold for permanent damage is 70 decibels. In so many words, 70 decibels is rather loud and can cause hearing damage from long periods of exposure.
More than a few residents raised the idea of raising kids in Brentwood, or of having lived there for decades, speaking about a specific identity that the city has, and should uphold. One person noted that 95 percent of the city is residential, that it is a bedroom community- quiet, safe and a good place to live and raise a family. And it should stay that way.
This sentiment is by no means restricted to concerns about a motorcycle dealership. Recently H.G. Hill faced public scrutiny when it bought a large swath of real estate on Franklin Road and Maryland Way. Last year, the community blocked a proposal by the developer to build a Brentwood city-center style mixed use commercial and high-density residential complex there and now a debate is going on over how that land should be developed, with the same values and objections residents brought to the ongoing Harley-Davidson and noise ordinance debate.
The mood in the meeting was respectful, but resentment seemed restrained just below the surface. The group of residents sees Brentwood having a strong identity as a great place to live- and they want to keep it that way. As one resident put it: the commission is put in office by the people, not by commercial interests, and if they do not listen to those same people, they will not stay there long.
“Please do not sell us out,” Charlotte Duncan, who lives near where the dealership will be built, said:“We know that business brings [tax revenue to the city], but there is no price tag on quality of life.”
The next meeting is Monday, April 21 at 7 p.m. The Brentwood City Commission will be able to revise the ordinance before it votes on it another time, and makes it law.
