Board affirms CEQA exemption for Outside Lands and approves 10-year permit extension after noise debate

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on the day of the hearing affirmed the Planning Department's categorical CEQA exemption for the Outside Lands music festival and approved a resolution extending the festival's use permit for an additional 10 years.

Neighbors and acoustical experts told the board they were not opposed to the festival itself but urged an enforceable, numerical decibel limit. Richard Drury, representing appellants Andrew Solo and Steven Summerstein and the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, said the city requires numerical limits at other Golden Gate Park venues and that Outside Lands has no comparable fixed threshold. “Outside Lands has no numerical noise limit,” Drury said, arguing that a strict decibel standard — for example the sort applied at Sharon Meadow — is necessary so noise can be measured and managed.

Derek Watry, an acoustical consultant with Wilson Airig, said the festival’s current monitoring was reactive and lacked clear, enforceable targets. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage…