A woman came to the podium complaining about constant noise from Daniel’s Vineyard to begin the July meeting of the McCordsville town council. Council member Greg Brewer said that, under current noise ordinances, there was nothing the town could do. As the meeting went on, however, it quickly became apparent that an ordinance the town was considering could solve the citizen’s issue.
The ordinance in question? A nuisance ordinance which would replace and expand on several existing ordinances within McCordsville, including the sound ordinance, which is currently based on decibel levels, shifting to being violated by any sound which disrupts the enjoyment of other people’s property.
“It gives the citizen multiple avenues if they feel their neighbor or a nearby business is a nuisance to them.”
The ordinance is triggered whenever a house or business receives three nuisance-related citations within a month or when an apartment complex receives five. What qualifies as a nuisance is anything that is “injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as essentially to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property.” Per town attorney Beth Copeland, this language is taken directly from the state nuisance statute, and is enforced to anything that is “objectively unreasonable or excessive and is causing a substantial disruption.” This can include anything from being too loud at night to foul odors to constant littering to overgrown plants.
One point of contention was the fact that police department runs for petty thefts were also limited to three for businesses, which members of the council argued could discourage them from reporting shoplifting.
“I think the concern is monopolization of police resources,” Brewer said. “They don’t want to be called into a convenience store because someone stole a candy store. It’s a question of what our priorities are.”
The goal, per Brewer, is to give citizens an actual mechanism through which their complaints can be addressed beyond merely speaking to the council.
“It just gives the community another option if they felt like they were being aggrieved,” Brewer said. “It emulates state statute and gives them a civil measure to voice their concerns.”
Citizens would have the ability to report their concerns the city, who would send a representative to verify the complaint. If the complaint is verified, a citation would be written and counted toward the nuisance ordinance. If the proper number of nuisance complaints accumulate against a property, an abatement notice would be sent, at which point the property owner would have the options to either remove the nuisance or appeal.
“As it is currently proposed in the ordinance, an owner or occupant of land who receives an abatement notice may request a hearing before the Town Council within 10 days of receipt of the notice, if they disagree with the allegations therein,” Copeland said.
July’s meeting was the first reading of the proposed ordinance, meaning there will be at least one more reading before the ordinance can be passed.
