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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHearing Examiner Decision - WSDOT Noise Variance NWR S 23-25 Pavement Repair Project XL6747 - Appendix A Transcript by Rev.com Page 1 of 8 Appendix A October 22, 2024 Hearing Transcript Noise Variance -- PR17-000278 Note: This is a computer-generated transcript provided for informational purposes only. The reader should not take this document as 100% accurate or take offense at errors created by the limitations of the programming in transcribing speech. A recording of the hearing is available at the City of Renton Community and Economic Development Department should anyone need an accurate rendition of the hearing testimony. Speaker 1 (00:00): The official start time. You want to start recording Kenny, Speaker 2 (00:03): Of course. Recording in progress. Speaker 1 (00:07): Okay, it's October 22nd, 2024, 11:00 AM on Phil Res hearing Examiner for the City of Renton. We have a hearing this morning on an application for a noise variance file number PR 24 dash 64 with the Washington State Department of Transportation as applicant. It looks like Alex Morgan Roth is the staff lead on this one. The hearing format is, we'll start off with Mr. Morgan Roth giving us an overview of what the variance application is about. Once he's finished, then we'll allow the applicant to speak in favor of their application if they want and then we'll move on to public comments. And so far, we may not have any members of the public, but if we do, we'll give 'em a chance to talk after the applicant's done. Then we go back to Mr. Morgan Roth to wrap it up and applicant gets final word and I get 10 business days to issue that decision. And let's see, Jenny, you got the exhibit list? You can post up there. Alright, so we have a total of how many total exhibits, Jenny, along with the staff and everything or presentation and all that. Speaker 3 (01:16): Well we have nine for the hearing examiner reports and 12 total. Speaker 1 (01:22): Okay. Alright. So at this point, since it doesn't look like we have any members of the public, I'll be real brief and anyone have any objections over entry of those 12 exhibits? If you do, just raise your virtual hand at the bottom of your screen there where it says raise hand or say I object if you're actually in the meeting room hearing, seeing no objections and we'll admit exhibits one through 12. Mr. Morgan Roth, let me swear you in. Just raise your right hand. Do you swear affirm to tell the truth, nothing but the truth in this proceeding? Speaker 4 (01:49): I do. Transcript by Rev.com Page 2 of 8 Speaker 1 (01:50): Great. Go ahead. Speaker 4 (01:51): Okay, thanks Mr. Examine, let me share my screen here. Speaker 1 (01:58): Oh yeah, let's see Speaker 4 (02:00): Here. You got that? Okay. Speaker 1 (02:04): Yeah. Speaker 4 (02:05): Okay, awesome. Thanks. Well, yeah. Hello everyone. Alex Markoff, principal planner with City of Renton going to be making a staff recommendation for the NWR South 23 to 25 pavement repair project, which essentially is a wash dot project for some pavement, some road and highway repair in the city of Brenton, part of a larger maintenance project. But this is obviously for a noise variance for only the work within the city limits within the city of Renton. So a little bit about the project. So the applicant, which is washed out, are requesting the hearing examiner noise variance. So we do require the public hearing for the noise variance and a hearing examiner decision for when work is going to occur for more than two nights consecutive nights. So that's why this is being requested. So for 15 consecutive nights of work about obviously there could be some changes with work like this work's proposed along approximately 0.23 linear miles of state route five 15 and one linear mile of state route 1 6 7 in rent and off some maps coming up here to illustrate that work to begin at about April of 2025 and ended December of 2025. (03:21): And again, the project according to the applicant is just to provide crack ceiling and asphalt patching on various highways throughout the region. Probably anticipation of some larger repairs coming down the pipeline, but that's kind of the first step there. And then the variance is being requested just to limit impacts to traffic. These are very busy state routes carrying everything from passenger traffic commuters to a lot of cargo stuff for Boeing, all the warehousing down in the valley there. So had one public comment and that was from King County Wastewater treatment Division. They've got some infrastructure in the area they've already been coordinating with WashDOT and if you have any questions on that, I'm sure they'll wash out. Representative can chat about that more, but I know that they are talking to each other about that. So here's the project site. Had to kind of mash these two maps together just so you can kind of follow along there. (04:17): So this is 1 67, so north would be to the right there mostly basically all commercial industrial properties along there. So that's about one mile of work there and then here, and that's 4 0 5 that you've got going by there again north to the right. And this is five 15 also Benson Road, local name. So kind of that a little bit of portion south of 4 0 5 there. And this is where we're capturing getting some residences within about 500 feet of the site there. And so that's kind of the main area I guess not of concern, but just where impacts might be the most felt just because of the type of land use there. Transcript by Rev.com Page 3 of 8 (05:08): So some of the equipment, I'm not going to read through all this, but just kind of standard equipment used for roadway repair, light repair. So this is where most of the noise impacts are going to come from at night as far as the noise levels. Looking at between 61 to 97 decibels at a distance of 50 feet expected to diminish to 45 to 81 at a distance of 300 feet. And just because of the nature of the work, it probably is going to move around a bit. It's not going to be just 15 nights at one location in front of one house, but they'll kind of move on along the roadway as they complete their work. (05:47): So a lot more analysis obviously in the staff report. But these are kind of the criteria that we looked at and did find that the applicant's request, which would allow temporary exceedance of noise limits during nighttime hours that's between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM would allow for the project to be completed without exacerbating the existing daytime traffic conditions and met the criteria that we ask for to be met to issue a variance. Those seven criteria there again, more analysis in the staff report. There are I believe four conditions of approval related to some various mitigation. Just making sure that neighbors are informed and that they have an outlet to submit any complaints and that there are, there's mitigation. So if it is really impactful to someone that they have alternatives. So I'll get into those conditions there. So those are the four conditions staff's recommending part of the noise variance, so implementation of noise mitigation measures in the staff report. (06:48): And then summary of any noise related complaints received provided to the city's project manager. So me within one week of receiving the complaint posted the nighttime work on WashDOT's website, which they do anyway, but just to make sure that's on there. All night works occur Monday through Friday. And then that their applicant WashDOT should provide hotel vouchers if some of the other mitigation techniques that they're able to offer to use residential folks that live nearby needed. So those are the four conditions recommended for approval and staff is recommending approval of the noise variance with those four conditions. So short presentation, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Speaker 1 (07:34): Yeah, I think we've done a few of these and that gives us a good baseline for how well these mitigation measures work. I mean the mitigation measures seem to just cover everything that you could reasonably do to mitigate noise impacts and up until recently it looked like they worked pretty well. I recall one hearing where we had a couple people saying they'd been next to some projects before and it wasn't a great experience for them. Just kind of curious, I mean, what's the track record so far with these? Do you know Mr. Morro, as I said, you've been getting many complaints and have they been effectively resolved or how is this working essentially? Speaker 4 (08:12): Yeah, I would say it's really project dependent. I guess I've worked on a few, it seems like we often get more complaints for projects that people not might expect to get nighttime work. So I think a lot of people expect if you live near a highway or live near a busy road, there's going to be some nighttime work occasionally. And I find we haven't seen as many complaints from that where we have seen maybe some complaints as if it's like a private, where Boeing has done some work on their site and maybe everyone knows Boeing is making planes and making some noise. But I think that's a little where you maybe get some more of the complaints, not just kind of what people see as the standard. Everyone knows the roads get repaired every once in a while, so I don't think we've seen any major complaints from wash stuff. It might be from other projects that are a little more out of the normal. Transcript by Rev.com Page 4 of 8 Speaker 1 (08:57): Oh I see. We Speaker 4 (08:58): Might not think you would need nighttime work. And then we get more questions kind of, Hey, why are they doing work here or there? Or maybe some, we had a King County, they were doing a sewer interceptor replacement that was a few years back, got a couple of questions about that because it was just a huge project that had a lot of digging below gray. This is going to be kind of on the surface, just kind of standard what you'd see for any road repair. And I'll let maybe the applicant, they have more experience doing these all over the place. Maybe they Speaker 1 (09:24): Have, Speaker 4 (09:25): There's other complaints from depending on the type of work, but we find with the road the roadway projects may be a little bit less than some other more one-off projects that people might not normally think of as needing nighttime Speaker 1 (09:37): Work. How are the complaints usually resolved? Are people sometimes actually put up in a hotel or sent? Speaker 4 (09:44): I don't know if we've ever, I think sometimes, I can't think of an example of one of my projects. I might defer to the applicant if they've had any experience with when it's their turn, if they've had any experience with that. I have not had any of that on my projects, but I'm Speaker 2 (10:00): Fairly Speaker 4 (10:01): Certain it's probably happened before for larger projects. Speaker 1 (10:05): I mean, just guessing. I bet you I would bet that a lot of times it's resolved by telling them it's almost done one or two more nights and it's over and that's it. Right. Is that often? Speaker 4 (10:16): I think so. Especially for projects like this where it's not like the King County interceptor project that lasted for like six months of nighttime. We're talking about a couple of weeks here. And same for some other, a couple of Boeing projects that were affecting some residences in the Southport area. So that was, yeah, we wouldn't have any hotel voucher, but they changed some of the timing. We basically Transcript by Rev.com Page 5 of 8 came to the city, this was years ago now when they came to the city and we worked with them to try to say, Hey, can you do some of this? Maybe at 9:00 PM instead of 2:00 AM Speaker 1 (10:49): Big Speaker 4 (10:49): Jackhammering that was making a lot of noise, so much more noise than what I dissipate is Speaker 1 (10:53): Going to Speaker 4 (10:53): Be for this project. They were putting in piles and driving piles, which can be really Speaker 1 (10:59): Impactful. Okay. Well that's good to hear. You guys can have some options available. So thanks Mr. Morgan Roth, appreciate your testimony. Alright, let's move on to applicant. Anyone from the applicant team want to add anything at this point? Speaker 3 (11:14): Hello? I could Speaker 1 (11:16): Jump Speaker 3 (11:17): In, but Alex did a really great job summarizing this project. Speaker 1 (11:21): Okay, Ms. Opel, let me swear in first, just raise your right hand. Do you swear firm tell the truth, nothing but the truth in this proceeding? Speaker 2 (11:27): Yes. Speaker 1 (11:27): And for the record, your last name is spelled O-P-P-F-E-L-T, is that correct? Speaker 3 (11:32): Yes. Speaker 2 (11:32): Transcript by Rev.com Page 6 of 8 Okay, Speaker 1 (11:32): Great. Go ahead. Speaker 3 (11:35): So the only thing I guess that I would add is just our reasoning for working at night to reiterate that again, construction related closures during daytime hours would result in delays in the traveling public. And this would include impacting bus routes. Both of these locations do have bus stops and they would probably have to be either relocated or closed. And so we would see delays in that during the daytime as well as affecting businesses. There are some businesses in the area and it would adversely impact traffic along a highway city arterials. It can jeopardize workers and public safety. So we do ask that construction work at night to would provide the least amount of impact. And then at these types of highway lane closures, and we're not doing full closures in this area, but that lane closures could be handled during these nighttime hours with the low traffic volumes that we see. (12:36): And then Alex did a great job. I was going to share our proposed mitigation measures, but we also had some others that I can add here. We asked the contractor, the engineer with trucks performing expert haul to make sure that they have well maintained bedliners and inspected and accepted by our washout engineer truck tailgate. Banging is prohibited, a copy of a noise variance would be kept on the site. And then we'd have written notifications detailing the anticipated work schedule, the project duration, a 24 hour complaint number to be sent to all residents. And we do within 500 feet. And we also send these out at least 14 calendar days prior to any anticipated nighttime work. And so this is where we'd anticipate if there were any complaints or concerns, the public could reach out to us at that time when we have more concrete dates. And then we also have contractor and wash dot personnel refraining from parking and idling vehicles. So luckily, again, that's all this has been stated, but we do anticipate not a lot of impact and we also anticipate no complaints. Residents are located over 300 feet from the project vicinity, the state route 1 67 location. In particular, the residents aren't even first row receivers. And I anticipate they probably won't even notice it's happening and that's our hope anyway. So that's all I have to add. Nick, did you want to say anything or? Speaker 5 (14:25): Yeah, I can. Oh, Speaker 1 (14:26): Mr. Menzel, let me swear in. Just raise your right hand. Do you swear for and tell the truth, nothing but the truth in this proceeding? Speaker 5 (14:32): I do. Speaker 1 (14:32): And for the record, that's M-E-N-Z-E-L, is that correct? Okay, great. Go ahead. Speaker 5 (14:37): Transcript by Rev.com Page 7 of 8 Yeah, and so I'll just add to, for these specific locations, we didn't identify any areas where we might have any grinding of the pavement repair or do patchwork repair. So for these two locations within Renton, we're anticipating that'll be crack sealing only. And so that should also contribute to low noise levels being emitted rather than having grinding machines or paving machines. Speaker 1 (15:11): And this is a question I always ask on these noise variance applications because there's so many different people affected usually, especially with wash dot projects. I mean, what's going to be the worst experience someone's going to have in terms of duration and noise levels? Which house is closest and is going to be next to the most work and what's that going to be like for them? Speaker 5 (15:35): I would say for this project in particular, I would anticipate maybe hearing contractors try to communicate with one another if they're a distance away from each other since it is about a mile long for 1 6 7, and then I think it's about less than half a mile for five 15. Oh, Speaker 1 (15:56): Okay. So you're saying actually the loudest noises are going to be people yelling at each other at night. Is that going to be the worst thing people get out of this or That's not too bad Speaker 5 (16:07): And also since lanes of traffic will be open without the grinding machine, I think that the ambient traffic noise might drown out the actual construction work itself in this space. Speaker 1 (16:19): Okay. Okay. Alright. So not too bad a project as far as nighttime work goes, it sounds like. Sounds good. Thank you Mr. Menzel. Alright, let's move on to public comments at this point. And Mr. Cisneros, do we have members of the public or not? I see a couple people in the attendee. Speaker 3 (16:37): We do have a couple people in, yes. Attendees. I don't know if Amy, do you recognize them or are they with your group? If not, then they would be members of the public. Speaker 1 (16:47): Yeah. If those of you who are watching want to say something at this point or have questions, go ahead and click on the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen and we will make sure you can be heard. Nope, not seeing any takers there, that's just fine. Alright, Mr. Groth, any final comments? Speaker 4 (17:04): No final comments. Yeah. Thank you Amy, for talking about a few of those signals are also included in the staff report. So if you just want to look at those mitigation measures, Mr. Examiner, they're in there as well. But yeah, nothing else to add. I think guys, noise variances go pretty easy one, it's really we're going through the public hearing just because of how long it's going to be essentially. Otherwise, if it was only a day or two, just be an administrative variance. So that's all I've got. Transcript by Rev.com Page 8 of 8 Speaker 1 (17:29): Okay. Sounds good. Alright, I'll go ahead and close the hearing. And yeah, it does compare to the other ones we've had sound like a pretty modest impact on people. I mean, most of the adjoining properties are commercial, which that's a good use to have for this kind of project. So yeah, it sounds pretty good. It should be a pretty straightforward approval and I'll get that out the next couple of weeks. So thanks all for participating. We're adjourned for this morning.