Ruskin Street residents should get relief from noise problems at the West U Recreation Center, following approval from city council to pay up to $33,000 for improvements.
Ruskin Street residents should get relief from noise problems at the West U Recreation Center, following approval from city council to pay up to $33,000 for improvements.
Council previously directed staff to have acoustical engineering studies performed on the noise levels emanating from mechanical equipment inside the Rec. Center after residents near the center complained.
Staff recommended that council consider providing additional “noise mitigation” in an amount not to exceed $40,000. The amount included $20,546 for improvements to the pool exhaust vent and $15,000 for sound blankets that will be placed inside the fence surrounding the HVAC chiller.
During a special council session on Monday night, staff changed the recommendation to an amount not to exceed $33,000 because prices for the improvements came in lower than expected. The pool exhaust vent improvements are estimated at $16,678. The chiller improvements are estimated at $12,278.
HFP Acoustical Consultants tested the sound levels in September, along with three residents from homes on Ruskin Street, representatives from PGAL and the City of West U. Measurements were taken from the Rec. Center and at two residential properties in the 4200 block of Ruskin.
HFP Acoustical Consultants found that the current sound levels meet West U’s noise ordinance, but residents are still complaining. They recommend that treatments be installed for the HVAC chiller so that sound levels in residential properties will be significantly lower.
The consultants also found that the pool exhaust vent noise meets West U’s noise ordinance, but recommended three options to control the noise. If treatments are made to the pool exhaust fan the noise level will be significantly lower, according to their report.
“It’s unreasonable to expect this much noise in their backyards,” Councilmember George Boehme said. “If I owned one of those homes … I‘d be a hell of a lot louder than they’ve been.”
Mayor Bob Kelly said the city needs to offer relief to the people on Ruskin but he was concerned if the improvements would satisfy them.
“Is this going to satisfy them? It’s hard to say,” he said. “What are we going to do if they complain again?”
Kelly said he wanted to know if the pool exhaust vent could be moved to the front of the Rec. Center.
“If I lived back there, I would want to move that sucker to the front,” Kelly said. “I don’t want to spend $33,000 and have to go back to the drawing board.”
Jeff Gerber, president and CEO of PGAL, said the work to move the exhaust vent to the front of the building would not be cost effective.
Currently, the pool exhaust vent is positioned on the back of the Rec. Center above the 10 foot high fence. The improvements will reroute the duct down the wall so it’s directed below the fence.
Improvements to the chiller include installing a 2-inch thick blanket on the fence that surrounds the mechanical equipment to help absorb noise. The blanket is weather proof and will not be visible to passers-by.
Hope Northrup, a Ruskin Street resident, thanked council for taking the time to visit her property to hear how loud the noise is from the Rec. Center.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said.
This is not the first time that the city council has looked at ways to help reduce noise for nearby residents.
In January 2010, council approved spending an extra $9,200 to build a 10-foot privacy fence to help with noise problems. The original plan was to build an 8-foot fence.
The improvements are expected to be complete by the end of March.
January 25th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Thirty grand to mitigate the “noise” that acoustical engineering studies couldn’t find? And this on top of the $9,200 we’re paying for the taller fence? Why not an extra $5,000 for margaritas and back massages to melt away the stress of a.c. unit hum for these poor souls? Are elections around the corner, or did everyone but me hold their breath too long as a child?
January 25th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Bunch of NIMBYs whining once again……..and there will be more whining to come.
January 26th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Love the sympathy for your neighbors. At least you won’t be surprised or upset the next time you get denied when looking for a public handout (appeal your real estate taxes much?).
Hey let’s do away with freebies and discounts for Seniors while we’re at it!! Those freeloaders can move somewhere else. Don’t get me started about free breakfasts at WUE! And on that note, why are the cops sitting around every day during school drop-off when they could be patrolling my street for real crime? Boo hoo, some mommy might get mad at someone taking an illegal left turn.
Wow, I sure sound like an a$$. Maybe I should just mellow out and be happy that my city works better than the vast majority in the country. Nah, it’s easier to complain.
January 26th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
“Love the sympathy for your neighbors.”
If you go back and re-read the article, it clearly states that the noise levels were NOT in violation of the city’s ordinance. If you’d like to give away YOUR money to fix a problem that doesn’t exist, you go right ahead; just don’t give away MY money, too. It’s easy to be benevolent with other people’s money, isn’t it?
“Wow, I sure sound like an a$$. Maybe I should just mellow out and be happy that my city works better than the vast majority in the country.”
Enjoy all the freebies and city services, and then demand cuts when you see the bill; it’s a tried and true West U. formula. I’ll remind you of that statement when the bill finally comes due – and it IS coming due soon.
January 26th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Of course I protest my tax valuation. One of the few options I have to control wasteful spending is to “starve the beast”.
And I agree; discounts, free meals, etc. funded by my taxes should be eliminated. Let the private citizens decide to donate this money or not. It is not government’s role to provide these social services.
January 26th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
When I’ve walked down the 4200 block of Ruskin Street after the Rec Center was built I’ve wondered how the residents on the south side of the street could tolerate the noise I’ve heard from the sidewalk. My question is why wasn’t this expected and planned for before building and placing the units right on top of these neighboring residents’ lots? Second, I can’t believe our noise ordinance thinks this is okay. Says to me that it needs to be revised. Maybe the planners decided to forgo noise mitigation and go with all the over the top expenses inside like the slate and glass. Instead of pointing the finger at the neighbors whose taxes helped pay for the mega disappointing Rec Center and have to put up with the 24/7 noise pollution, investigate who didn’t anticipate and deal with the noise beforehand.
January 27th, 2011 at 6:48 am
Are some of you saying the city does not have a responsibility to fix an unbearable noise problem it created?
The noise level in the backyards is unbearable. All you have to do is stand is the middle of one to understand how unbearable the noise is. The current noise level simply deprives these few homes the ability to enjoy their backyards in any meaningful way. (Like they were able to do with the old YMCA building.)
The architects, engineers and city staff originally recommended the building be constructed much closer to Holombe. But an earlier city council relocated the building to be next to the homes on the south side of Ruskin. This relocation of the building was a mistake and, in my view, the city has an obligation to fix it.
FYI: West University has one of the most permissive noise nuisance ordinances around. For example, the noise level in those backyards would be illegal in Houston, Bellaire and Austin. However if might be legal in Baytown and Pasadena. My view is that our noise ordinance is too permissive and probably should be more like Bellaire’s and less like Baytown’s.
But if there is any question in your mind about the seriousness of the problem, go stand in one of the backyards. I will bet you a cheeseburger that you will agree the noise problem needs to be fixed.
January 28th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Sounds like the dissatisfaction with city spending is causing alot of frustration. Residents you need to keep at city council and the city managers to slow down and stop finding new ways to spend money.
January 28th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
I walked with my husband this morning down this block of Ruskin. It is loud. Fix it.
January 28th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Unfortunately we, as a city, are stuck with some bad design solutions that we didn’t know any better than to accept. OBVIOUSLY, with houses close behind the facility and a busy street and a parking lot out in front, ALL the pool vents and HVAC mechanical equipment SHOULD have been located on the front side of the building. That’s what any “good neighbor” would have done.
We didn’t catch it and, unfortunately, there are financial repercussions to that oversight. Can we sue the architects and engineers for having misled us? Maybe. Might be worth considering, but probably not likely to be successful.
What we do need to do, however, is fix the problem to the best of our ability. Have we made a mistake that has meaningfully lowered the value of the homes of some of our citizens because of this mistake? Maybe, and if we have then, unfortunately, we need, as a city, to compensate them for that loss.
So if you are whining about having to pay for a little sound mitigation now, hang onto your shorts if we have to pay each homeowner $50 grand to compensate for our engineer’s BAD DESIGN! (And that won’t be some liberal government handout, it will be honest compensation for destroying someone’s property value due to negligence.)
Do you think we have “heard” the end of this? Not Likely. If you had a huge vent roaring over your back fence do you think everything is going to be OK just because they make the roar come out lower than your fence? No, and I wouldn’t likely be pleased either. I agree with the Mayor that the vent needs to be moved to the front parking lot even if the engineers think that is not cost effective. Make THEM pay for it.
I also think the HVAC equipment should be moved to the front of the building. Yes, even now, I think it should be relocated. Suck it up, admit we made a bad mistake and fix the problem correctly and completely instead of these whimpy bandaide measures that will need replacement in a few years and will only partially reduce the noise in any case. We should ELIMINATE the noise. I mean, how would you like to have that kind of noise in your yard all the time??? Maybe that meets the “letter of the law”, but it sure doesnt meet the “spirit” of neighborly friendship that we pride ourselves as having in this City.
We made a mistake and we need to fix it by moving the equipment and the vents to the front!!
January 29th, 2011 at 11:26 am
another west u resident has it half right: The city screwed up by building the building next to the houses. But it is not the “engineer’s BAD DESIGN” or the city staff’s bad recommendation. They both recommended the building be next to the street not the houses. The Mayor and City Council ignored their advice and moved it next to the houses. Now the Mayor says he wants to move th HVAC to the front of the building (at a cost of 200K or more). Why didn’t hethe mMayor just follow the expert’s advice in the first order? The Mayor ignored the professional’s advice? Don’t give the Mayor credit-He caused the problem.