Why this matters:
City planning groups — and residents suing the Padres and the city over concert noise — warned the change creates a loophole that would allow violations under several different permits if approved by the mayor or a designated official.
San Diego city planners described a change to local noise regulations as a “clarification” of existing rules, one of 134 updates approved in one fell swoop by the council this summer.
But the change could have farther reaching effects. City planning groups warned it creates a huge loophole that would allow violations of the noise limits under several different permits if approved by the mayor or a designated official.
And it could impact a lawsuit filed by a group of residents neighboring Petco Park that is suing over noise from concerts the San Diego Padres have held at the Gallagher Square venue, just outside the park walls. The city also is characterizing the update in different ways.
In a memo sent to the council on June 5, just before the heap of changes to the land code were approved, Planning Department Director Heidi Vonblum said the change simply “clarifies” existing law.
“The amendment adds clarifying language that in specific situations a use or activity that is otherwise authorized by a special event permit, development permit, or other permit or agreement may temporarily exceed average noise level limits,” she wrote.
But in an Aug. 21 legal filing in the lawsuit filed by downtown residents near Petco Park, city lawyers gave another explanation: The new language simply codified the city’s “long-standing interpretation” that some activities with certain permits are exempt from the noise ordinance.
Whatever the reason, the San Diego Community Planners Committee, which is made up of representatives from the city’s 41 community planning groups, requested removing the noise rule from the package of changes and sending it back to staff. The vote was 24-1, minutes of the meeting show.
The group cited the sweeping nature of the change.
“CPC’s concern is that the amendment appears to have been characterized as a clarification when, in fact, it constitutes a substantive policy change,” the group wrote. “This exemption language does not currently exist within the Municipal Code and therefore represents more than a clarification of existing law.”
The group said that it missed the import of the change when it first reviewed the package of changes because it was listed under the category of “clarifications” in the report.
It was only when the Downtown Community Planning Council analyzed the change and brought them to the group that the “broader implications” surfaced, according to the CPC.
Gary Hewitt, the chairperson of the downtown group, said he too missed the change at first. His focus was on updates to the downtown area, he said in an interview.
“The way it was phrased in the staff report, no one thought much of it,” he said. It was only when he was reviewing the changes in May that he said he realized how broad the language was, and its implications city-wide.
The proposed change lacked what the community planners group called in a June 5 letter to the City Council “appropriate guardrails.”
Those include a ceiling on decibel levels, time limits, processes for notifying the public of an event, making findings allowing the noise to exceed limits and an appeal process.
Victoria LaBruzzo, the chairperson of the committee, said the new language was insufficient. “It has holes in it,” she said.
In a presentation in May to the committee, Hewitt said that the language the city said was a clarification was never in the code previously. He also said that while the staff report said the change allows noise to “temporarily exceed” limits, the actual language is open-ended and the revised ordinance contains no time limit.
The group known as Residents Concerned about Gallagher Square Noise first sued the city and the Padres in 2023, but held off pursuing the claim while the Padres revamped the concert stage with a new sound system that the lawsuit said was intended to reduce the noise.
But that did not happen, and residents say the problem continues to plague homesthe residences around the park. Concerts held at Gallagher Square “caused noise levels at nearby residences to exceed the applicable noise limits set in the City’s Noise Ordinance, and there is no indication that the Padres will further alter the sound system or that the City will enforce noise reductions,” they argued in a brief filed in February.
Grant Olsson, a lawyer for the residents, declined to comment on the change in the noise ordinance. A response to the city’s Aug. 21 filing is due Sept. 11.
The city contends that it allows the Padres to have concerts where the noise can hit a 95-decibel average — as measured from the sound board. The residents argue that measurement is flawed because it is based on a sound board located inside the park.
The city also contends in its papers that the residents “moved near Gallagher Square after Petco Park was constructed in 2004 and now complain about noise from concerts held within that venue even though concerts were clearly contemplated during the overall Ballpark Project approval process.”
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
