Residents speak up and muffle noise concerns

A county board orders noise-abating changes on two building projects.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 14, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - They objected to the sounds of tires being changed and construction fill being hauled, so they showed up at a county board room to make a little noise of their own.

Hudson, as represented by the dozens of residents filling the seats at Thursday's meeting of the county's Development Review Committee, had problems with two items on the agenda: One, the construction of a tire repair shop at Little Road and Hudson Avenue. Two, the proposed route of construction traffic on a project to build 43 houses and 67 triplexes in the Beacon Park subdivision.

Three hours later, they ended up with a sound-barrier wall for the tire shop and an alternate road for the construction traffic, the latter leaving them so appreciative they started clapping and heading toward the door before county planners had even taken their final vote.

The Goodyear Tire shop is part of a project with three one-story buildings - the others are for retail and a drive-through restaurant - at the northwest intersection of Hudson Avenue and Little Road. Goodyear would be located on a part of the property closest to a residential section and therein lay the rub.

"Can you imagine living next to this tire shop," Marian Jorgensen, president of Estates Property Owners Association in Hudson, told planners "and hearing ba-ba-ba-ba-ba ...?"

Shelly Johnson, a lawyer representing the property owner, said the noise would not be as bad as residents thought. She summoned a noise expert, who brought with him a tire pump equipped with a new type of silencer.

He demonstrated the machine. Ba-bab-ba-ba - softer with the silencer than without.

Planners approved the project but with a condition that an eight-foot wall be constructed to help block noise. Johnson said her client had determined that such a wall - which is not required by county code - was not financially feasible. She said after the meeting that she wasn't sure whether the owner would go ahead and build the wall or appeal the condition.

On the Beacon Park traffic item, planners sided with a request by the neighbors that all construction traffic use Buffalo Drive, where no houses are currently located. But first, that road will have to be stabilized, which developers estimated would cost around $40,000.

County Administrator John Gallagher said the county could pitch in $15,000, which he would take before commissioners. The developers, D.R. Horton, would pay the rest.

After the meeting, a D.R. Horton representative said the decision was fine by him.

"At least I got $15,000 out of the county," said Richard Ladd, with D.R. Horton's land acquisition division. "We wanted to use Buffalo all along."

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

[Last modified September 13, 2007, 22:01:17]