Baffling might solve A/C noise problems

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

Noisy air-conditioning units may be soon be regulated. City planning director David Taylor was directed by the Whitefish City Council on July 21 to prepare a zoning code amendment to address concerns about environmental noise.

The issue has been discussed by the council several times in the past year or two, including discussion about neighborhood complaints about air-conditioning units at The Lodge at Whitefish Lake and at a public hearing for a proposed office building now being built on Wisconsin Avenue.

But lacking any city regulations, the council has struggled with finding a way to protect neighbors from that kind of noise.

Chief building official Virgil Bench recommended shielding larger air-conditioning units by enclosing them with absorptive noise-barrier walls.

"I would recommend against trying to monitor decibels in this situation," Bench said, noting that condenser fan motors can range from one-half to 10 horsepower. "Periphery noise, exterior temperatures, time of day, time of year, etc. would all contribute dramatically to the run-time of equipment and would require months of monitor time to establish historical data to establish acceptable acoustical levels."

Taylor said the best way to implement the change is by amending the city's architectural design standards as it applies to new construction.

Councilor Turner Askew suggested exempting single-family homes and duplexes, but councilor Nick Palmer, who has led the call for noise standards, cited a "very noisy" air-conditioning unit at a single-family residence on Fourth Street.

"I don't like regulation either, but when it hurts the quality of life," Palmer said.

Taylor was directed by council consensus to exempt single-family homes, but he will leave it up to the council to decide about duplexes.

In other council news:

? Palmer agreed to step down from an ad hoc committee that is reviewing lakeshore protection regulations for Whitefish Lake.

In a July 15 letter to the council, lakeshore protection committee chairman Jim Stack described Palmer's recent actions as a "personal attack."

Stack responded in the letter to what he called "groundless accusations" and said Palmer "accosted" him and his wife outside City Hall before an earlier council meeting by threatening to "come after" them.

"I don't see a problem, but I'm glad to be off the committee," Palmer said, adding that he'd never been on a committee that did so little over so long a time.

? City attorney John Phelps called the Flathead County Planning Board's action on July 16 "confusing." He said state statute clearly states that when an area has a joint planning board, both sides need to agree before dissolving the board.

The current Whitefish City-County Planning Board was created decades before the 2005 city-county interlocal agreement was signed creating the city's two-mile planning and zoning jurisdiction.

Last week, the county planning board approved amendments to the county growth policy that deleted references to the interlocal agreement. Phelps said that could be grounds for another lawsuit against the county, but he didn't recommend it.

"It's becoming increasingly confusing," he said, adding that he hopes to get a ruling soon from the Montana Supreme Court about a preliminary injunction.

? The council approved the idea of providing "all-day" parking on Central Avenue north of Railway Street by eliminating the two-hour parking restriction.

The idea, which Palmer brought to the council, is to make an area that typically sees few parked vehicles available for downtown employees. Downtown employees take up parking spaces that could be used by shoppers, and they must constantly move their vehicles to avoid tickets, the council noted.

Palmer also wanted to raise the parking fine to $25, at least as a test case, to free up more parking to downtown visitors.

But Askew pointed out that many visitors can't shop and have lunch within the two-hour limit. A $25 fine will drive people away, Askew said.

? A request for a conditional-use permit by Michael Smith and Diane Carter for an accessory apartment above a detached garage at 333 Lupfer Avenue was unanimously approved with no public comment.