Pile driving operation in Avon drives noise complaints from residents
Pile driving will last another 3-7 weeks, according to developer; Avon looks to introduce noise law
Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily
Some Avon and EagleVail residents may be familiar with the metronomic banging sound that has run from morning until dark most days since Feb. 19.
This is the pile driving operation for the Bosk apartment project, under Prime West Development, which will ultimately add 242 market-rate units in the Village (at Avon) on the north side of Avon.
Though Prime West Development is the developer, Shaw Construction is the project’s contractor. Shaw Construction subcontracted the pile driving portion to Keller Management Services, a “geotechnical specialist contractor” that works throughout the world. Keller’s Rocky Mountain region focuses on projects related to “foundation support, slope stabilization, earth retention, ground improvement, expansive/collapsible soil issues, infrastructure, and environmental remediation,” according to its website.
Repeated measurements by town, contractor show pile driving noise below state limits
While the noise is merely a nuisance for some, for those living in close proximity to the project site, it has disrupted their daily lives. The town of Avon has received complaints about the pile driving from residents of the Piedmont Apartments and those living on Eaglebend Drive, both directly aligned with the project’s sound corridors.
“Inside our apartment, with the windows and doors closed, it reaches 80 decibels consistently,” said Nik Reese, a resident of the Piedmont Apartments, at the March 11 Avon Town Council meeting.
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Eighty decibels is comparable to the noise made by a vacuum cleaner or garbage disposal. More than 40 hours per week of exposure at this level can lead to hearing damage, according to the World Health Organization.
Reese requested that the town suggest the construction project use sound protection for pile driving. As the Piedmont Apartments do not have air conditioning, “coming into summer without having our windows open is not going to be good,” he said.
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Avon does not have construction noise laws. As a result, the town relies on the state’s noise abatement law, Colorado Revised Statute 25-12-103, which limits the maximum level for construction to 80 decibels from 7 a.m. to. 7 p.m.
After receiving complaints, Avon staff reached out to Prime West Development and recorded sound levels at the project’s property line.
“We were contacting the developer within minutes … when we got complaints, letting them know,” said Eric Heil, Avon’s town manager. “That’s generally how we try to operate.”
On March 19, Avon’s code enforcement officer used a decibel meter on the north perimeter of the Piedmont Apartments, and measured an average reading of 75 decibels or below, according to Greg Daly, Avon’s chief of police. Shaw Construction also monitors the pile driving’s noise levels daily with its own decibel reading device to ensure the sound remains within state-regulated levels.
“What they’re doing is not in violation of the state noise abatement statutes,” Heil said.
“I think they’re trying to do what they can, but we’ve got bad soils in the valley all over and around Avon, so most construction projects, I’m going to expect are going to have some amount of pile driving like this, and that’s the nature of construction where we live,” Heil said.
There is nothing Avon can do right now to enforce the state’s noise law, even if the project were in violation. “Right now, the state statute says an individual can go file in district court,” Heil said.
Avon staff is currently working on drafting a construction noise law. Vail’s law limits construction noise in residential, commercial, industrial and public premises to 90 decibels from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Avon staff plans to bring the law to the Town Council for first reading on April 8. Heil expects it will be aligned with the state’s law in sound and hour limitations but enable local enforcement and the engagement of the municipal court, rather than the district court.
Heil said that to his knowledge, Avon has not received complaints about pile driving before.
“But we haven’t had a project of this size adjacent to an existing apartment project,” he said.
Pile driving is expected to end between late April and mid-May
The Prime West Development team said the pile driving part of the construction project is expected to run for another four to seven weeks, which would mean an end date in late April or mid-May.
“Typical working hours” of the pile driving project are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, with occasional work on weekends, wrote Jeff Farmer, vice president of multifamily development with Prime West Development, in an email to the Vail Daily.
The Prime West Development team is in regular communication with Shaw Construction, and communicates with Keller through Shaw, said Tim Schlichting, Prime West Development’s president.
“We’re definitely aware of some of the noise impacts and concerns through Shaw,” Schlichting said. “We recognize that being below the state limits may still be deemed as a nuisance to some of the residents that are nearby. We’re sensitive to that.”
After hearing about the noise complaints, the Prime West Development team reached out to the management of the Piedmont Apartments to share information about the project and the expected duration, Farmer said.
Through Shaw, Prime West Development’s team has asked whether there are alternative options that might keep the noise down. “It is to our understanding that there has yet to be any solutions that might be readily implementable to dampen the noise, but that’s something that’s still being looked at with Shaw and the subcontractor,” Farmer said.
“They say when they typically do this kind of thing, as long as they are conforming to the state levels and as long as they are operating during the prescribed hours, that is fairly customary and they don’t usually implement anything further,” Schlichting said. “We’re still challenging them to continue to think about it.”
