The City is asking for public input on changes proposed to the City of Las Cruces Ordinance 1988 that regulates noise throughout the City of Las Cruces. Ordinance 1988, “Noise,” is included in Chapter 19, Offenses and Miscellaneous Provisions, of the Las Cruces Municipal Code. Residents have until June 21, 2019 to submit comments by email and are encouraged to attend a public meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 18, 2019 in Conference Room 2007-B and 2007-C, Las Cruces City Hall, 700 N. Main St.
The CURRENT Noise Ordinance can be viewed here.
The recommendation to update the Noise Ordinance first came from the Las Cruces City Council at a work session on April 10, 2017. The current ordinance is outdated and hard to enforce, so the recommendation was to add decibel levels to different zoning districts.
To make an informed decision about what the decibel standards should be, the City had a noise study completed in December 2018 to see what the existing noise levels are throughout Las Cruces. Between commercial, residential, parks and recreation, and industrial land-uses, 20 sites were selected to do the noise testing.
The data collection and evaluation results concluded that the average noise levels for each location and time period measured are acceptable, and do not seem to indicate any extreme noise level scenarios. Based on these findings, the recommendation is to use the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) standards for the Las Cruces ordinance but make some modifications that compel commercial and industrial zones to use residential standards in the evening.
The PROPOSED Noise Ordinance can be viewed here.
A fact sheet detailing the proposed changes can be viewed here.
A copy of the Noise Study can be viewed here.
A public input meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 18, at Las Cruces City Hall, 700 N. Main Street, Conference Room 2007 B&C.
A public comment period is open until June 21, 2019 to allow city residents to provide their input on the proposed changes to the ordinance. Comments about the proposed changes can be sent by email to: Elizabeth Teeters, Policy Analyst at the City of Las Cruces, at eteeters@las-cruces.org or noiseord@las-cruces.org, or by phone at 575/541-2181.
After the public input process is concluded, the proposed changes are scheduled to be presented to City Council at a Work Session on June 24, 2019.