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Highlands board debates shift toward decibel-based noise rules as residents warn of unintended effects
Summary
The Highlands board continued work on a revised noise ordinance that adds objective decibel limits; residents and commissioners debated amplified outdoor sound, construction-site radios and whether low decibel thresholds could curb protests. The board agreed to refine the draft and consider a committee before voting.
The Highlands Town Board of Commissioners spent much of its April 16 meeting discussing a recently released rewrite of the town's noise ordinance that would add decibel-based limits and narrow some subjective enforcement criteria.
Nick Tosko, who presented the draft language, said the update was prepared with input from the police chief and example provisions from other jurisdictions to make enforcement clearer. "We tried to tailor it to be more objective as opposed to subjective," Tosko told the board during the discussion.
Police Chief (identified in the meeting as the chief) and staff described three broad approaches used across North Carolina: purely subjective disturbance standards, a hybrid subjective-plus-decibel…
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