July 11, 2012

Neighbours complain about noise from Vancouver Island trade school

NORTH ISLAND COLLEGE

Some neighbours are unhappy with noise coming from North Island College's $8.2 million Trades Training Centre.

SHANNON MONEO

correspondent

A training facility for carpenters in Courtenay, B.C. has hit a nerve for a handful of homeowners who say the noise of daily hammering and sawing is unacceptable.

In February 2011, North Island College opened its $8.2 million Trades Training Centre and soon after homeowners, on a cul-de-sac about 75 metres away, starting hearing what they described as excessive noise.

It was coming primarily from the semi-enclosed workshop, but also from an enclosed shop, dust collector and rooftop HVAC unit.

“This is a significant disruption to our lives and we’d like it to be fixed,” said Bev Skwernuik, who’s leading the group of four affected households. “You don’t put a trades centre abutting a residential neighbourhood.”

Last summer, Skwernuik’s young children had their naps in the front of her house because the back was too noisy.

“I’ve spent no time in my back yard for a couple years,” she said.

North Island College offers pre-apprenticeship Carpentry Foundation courses and the full Carpentry Apprenticeship Program.

A maximum of 32 students, in two classes, attend school from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday in the 548-square-metre open-air compound and the 792-square-metre inside shop, said Susan Auchterlonie, North Island’s director of college and community relations.

In May 2011, the college had Wakefield Acoustics assess the noise.

Acoustical engineers determined that noise levels ranged from 61 to 78 decibels.

Sixty-five decibels is equivalent to a normal conversation at one metre and 95 decibels equals a jackhammer at 15 metres, the level when sustained exposure may cause hearing loss.

By September, an $80,000 budget was approved for noise mitigation.

In October, a contractor enclosed the HVAC units, sprayed an acoustical liner inside the building and applied sound-reduction material to the fence separating the trades building and the homes.

In November, Wakefield did follow-up testing and found that the noise control treatments produced a six to nine decibel reduction of the intense noise, equal to about a 35 percent reduction in the perceived loudness, Auchterlonie said.

But Skwernuik still wants the open-air compound to be fully enclosed.

However, the college said it can’t do that because the work generates a lot of dust and natural airflow is necessary, Auchterlonie said.

As one remedy, instructional time in the open-air compound has been reduced to about 13 to 22 per cent of the total time for each apprenticeship training class (21 to 36 hours for each class over six weeks) and about 36 per cent of the foundation class time, (233 hours of 648 hours over 24 weeks), said Auchterlonie.

Beyond the racket, Skwernuik takes issue with the building of the trades centre.

Larger city campuses require that trades’ training facilities are developed on industrial-zoned land, rather than institutional-zoned property, she said.

Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building Construction Trades Council, agrees that most trade schools are usually situated in industrial areas.

He hasn’t heard complaints about noise from trade schools because they’re not built near residential areas.

Most often, gripes about noise arise during construction.

He recalled noise complaints from residents in Vancouver’s West End when the race was on to finish the Convention Centre, prior to the 2010 Olympics.

Skwernuik noted that homeowners put up with more than a year of construction noise, but were assured by the college that noise from the facility would be controlled.

In Vancouver, a variance was granted to the city’s noise bylaw, allowing ear-splitting work like pile-driving and vehicle backup alarms to plague residents outside of daytime work hours.

“We deal with noise all the time in the construction industry. I can appreciate the frustration this person must feel with noise five days a week,” Sigurdson said.

“It’s a difficult situation for someone who’s been there and enjoyed peace and tranquillity.”

But, people will complain about noise even though the level is relatively low, he added.

“People don’t like their ‘quiet’ interrupted,” he said.

A berm and sound walls should also be installed, he added.

Auchterlonie admitted that when the building was planned, little consideration was given to noise complaints.

The site and design of the outdoor carpentry workshop was designed poorly, Skwernuik said.

“It is designed like an amphitheatre and we can hear even the quietest of sounds, let alone those of the ‘perpetual construction’,” she said.

If there had been more foresight and time, the building probably would have been situated and designed differently, Auchterlonie said.

The project was a beneficiary of provincial/federal funding under the 2009-2010 Knowledge Infrastructure Program, a scheme known for tight deadlines.

With only 12 months to build the facility, work was done quickly, Auchterlonie said.

“We’re at a place right now that we’ve done what we can.”

Print | Comment