After months of debate, the McCordsville town council passed a new nuisance ordinance, albeit with work left to be done, at its September meeting.
The most contentious part of the ordinance concerning sound, which the council had been going back and forth on concerning wording for the past two months, was removed from the initial version of the ordinance and tabled for a later date. The town currently has a noise ordinance, which will remain in effect unless and until it is replaced by the addition of sound to the new nuisance ordinance.
The noise issue was highlighted by resident Dottie Salsbury, who previously testified at both July and August’s town council meetings that she felt local winery Daniel’s Vineyard was being a nuisance based on the amount of noise they were creating, but that since the sound fell under the decibel threshold, the current noise ordinance didn’t apply. Salsbury was hopeful that a nuisance ordinance, based not on specific decibel levels but rather interfering with “comfortable enjoyment of life or property,” would give her an avenue to voice her concerns, but when she realized that the noise aspect had been stripped out of the nuisance ordinance, she returned to testify in September, complaining that the noise was still an issue. When she testified in July, several members of the council signaled that they agreed with Salsbury, namely John Price and Bryan Burney, but council president Greg Brewer said that with the current noise ordinance, the council couldn’t do anything about it.
As reported in July, the nuisance ordinance will create a process through which residents can complain to the town, which would be authorized to have an employee or officer inspect the area of the supposed nuisance and, if that employee or officer felt it appropriate, issue an abatement notice to the property owner, who would then have the option to either request a hearing or remove the nuisance.
The nuisance ordinance generally lines up with the equivalent state statute for Indiana, specifying what qualifies as a nuisance and how the town would enforce the ordinance.
The ordinance passed 5-0 and will go into effect on October 15.
