Role of Land Use Planning in Noise Control

Role of Land Use Planning in Noise Control by STEPHANIE J. CASWELL and KARL JAWS, respectively research associate, Department of Landscape Architecture and Re- gional Planning, and assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This study was supported primarily by the Massachusetts Agricul- tural Experiment Station, University of Massachusetts (paper No. 1061), with additional support from the U.S. Department of Interior Office of Water Resources Research and the USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, Pinchot Institute for En- vironmental Forestry Research. ABSTRACT.-A method for controlling outdoor noise through land use planning is presented. The method utilizes a computer model that broadly assesses the likely noise environments of a community on the basis of generalized land use and highway noise production and transmission conditions. The method is designed to enable town planners and other community decision-makers to identify those general areas that are potentially unsuitable for noise-sensitive types of development such as housing. The method also predicts probably changes in noise environments and in the suitability of those environments due to general changes in land use (development). The method does not require site-specific measurements. AS THE INTEREST of this confer- this manipulation constitutes the role of ence in the acoustic environment in- land use planning in noise-pollution dicates, noise pollution is one of the control. hazardous and disagreeable byproducts Noise planning controls may operate of human activity that warrants control. at either of two scales. At a larger Historically, noise has been an undesir- planning scale are general land use al- able feature of city life. Since World location noise controls. These are pri- War 11, however, it has become an un- marily allocations of various types of desirable feature of communities in gen- development within a larger landscape eral. The population explosion of recent context (such as a town) to appropriate decades and the subsequent process of noise-environment zones. In other decentralized development have brought words, noise-sensitive land uses are al- increasingly large numbers of suburban located to quieter zones and noisier land as well as urban residents into objec- uses are allocated to noisier zones. Noise tionable proximity to proliferating control is for the most part a matter of sources of noise. isolating or aggregating land uses to Insofar as the actual noise levels of prevent the undesirable exposure of offending sources in the environment noise-sensitive areas. At this scale, are not likely to be reduced for some specific types of noise buffers between time, the abatement of noise pollution uses are not considered. today depends largely on our ability to At a smaller planning scale are control noise in transmission. Con- what might be called land use manage- trolling sound in transmission involves ment noise controls. These include the manipulating the effective proximity of provision or enhancement of various a noise source and the noise-sensitive types of noise buffers between acoustic- receiver. In the outdoor environment, ally incompatible land uses. In other words, barriers, forests, fields, distances, total lack of such tools for noise-related and other buffers are maintained or planning purposes has led to the re- managed between noisy land uses (fac- search reported here. A computerized tories, highways, shopping centers) and technique or methodology for control- noise-sensitive land uses (neighbor- ling outdoor noise through land-use hoods, schools, hospitals). Generally at planning is discussed. this scale, a particular noise problem is This technique is intended to provide a either controlled (for example, by con- practical basis for larger scale noise- structing a berm between a housing de- related land use planning. Specifically, velopment and a highway) or prevented our methodology is designed to enable (for example, by siting a school at a planners and other decision-makers to suitable distance from a factory). broadly identify those areas of the land- To date, these opportunities for noise scape within a community context that control through land use planning have are potentially unsuitable for noise- not been presented in terms particularly sensitive types of development (for ex- useful to planners and other decision- ample, housing). It is further designed makers. With the exception of a high- to predict probable changes in noise en- way-noise-simulation model developed vironments and in the suitability of by the firm of Bolt Beranek and New- those environments due to general man (Gallozvay et al. 1969), previous changes in uses of the landscape. The outdoor noise assessment techniques, notable feature of the methodology is notably "comn~unity noise reaction that it does not require site-specific models" (Great Britain Committee 1963, measurements. EPA 1972), have relied entirely on site- We have also developed a nonmeas- specific measurements. Such measure- urement technique to aid smaller scale ments are both time-consuming and noise-related land use-planning and costly and therefore highly impractical management decisions (Fabos and for many planning purposes. In addi- Caszuell, 1977). However, this tech- tion, site measurements are really useful nique, which is designed to enable users only in defining existing noise problems to estimate and avoid (through buffer- such as the extent to which noise from ing) potential noise conflicts between an airport affects the noise character of adjacent but different uses of the land- the surrounding landscape. Moreover, scape, is not discussed here. measurements require that each noise This noise-pollution planning techni- problem be evaluated separately on the que was developed as part of a larger basis of measurements pertaining only interdisciplinary research effort (on- to that particular problem. In general, going at the University of Massachu- present noise models cannot be used setts) known as the Metropolitan practically to assess multiple noise prob- Landscape Planning Model Project lems. Nor can they be used to predict (Fabos 1973). For a discussion of the the probable effects of proposed noise nature and operation of the Metropoli- intrusions (airports, industries, and tan Landscape Planning Model, which shopping centers) on surrounding en- deals with a variety of resource, hazard, vironments. and use-suitability aspects of the land- Planning, however, relies upon tools scape, see the paper by Fabos and Ferris that are both practical and predictive; included in these proceedings. that is, assessment techniques and planning guidelines that can be used with THE NOISE ENVIRONMENT relative ease to evaluate in a general ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY way a wide variety of existing or po- Noise is a dynamic phenomenon that, tential landscape situations. The almost once generated by a source, travels over a number of transmission paths to re- The basis for these three procedures ceivers located at various distances from is described below. An exemplary ap- the original point or area of noise out- plication of the methodology to the put. The noise level at a given receiver Town of ~urlington (located in the therefore depends upon the original northwestern section of the Boston strength of the noise at the source and metropolitan region) for data relating upon the degree of loss in this strength to 1971 is used to illustrate each pro- that is caused by the physical charac- cedure. teristics (trees, hills, pavement) of the transmission path along which the noise Procedure for determining has traveled. noise source areas The present noise methodology is The procedure for determining noise based on this acoustic principle. For any source areas is based on two general given community, procedures were de- types of noise sources that may appear veloped for determining : (1) noise in the landscape: (1) land uses and source areas and the likely strengths of (2) highways. these sources, (2) transmission loss Noise source areas were determined areas and the likely degree of noise first by assigning a characteristic noise reduction provided by these areas, and level to each land use and highway type, (3) the probable noise environments and second by aggregating those land that result from the transmission of uses and higl~wayshaving similar noise noise from noise source areas through levels into land use and highway noise transmission-loss areas to other parts groups (tables 1 and 2). The mapping of the community. of these groups for any town would Table I.-Assigned land use noise levels and resultant land use noise groups for land uses in the Town of Burlington in 197 1 [A 1971 land use map aggregated according to these land use groups would yield a map showing the various land use noise source areas comprising the town for that year.] Land uses in land use noise group Assigned land use noise level Open space (wetland, forest, openland, abandoned land) Farmland Orchard Nursery Cemetery Estate Low-density housing Medium-density housing; lo~v-intensiverecreation (golf course, driving range, drive-in) Townhouse Garden apartment Public institution Lighter industry Shopping center Medium intensive recreation (playground, athletic field) Strip commercial Intensive recreation (amusement park) Core commercial Heavier industry Mining (sand and gravel and traprock) Table 2.-Estimated highway noise levels

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