Noise at Solitude
Dear SVMA Homeowners,
In recent weeks, Solitude has had a few noise complaints called in to UPD after 10 PM. The primary culprit for these has been in relation to activities held at our Last Chance Lodge – located half-way between the Solitude Village and Moonbeam Base areas – and our Thursday night movies located near the base of Apex lift. I wanted to let you know that I am aware of these issues and that my team is in process of trying to solve for them.
I know many of you have chosen to live up here in the canyon for reasons related to the beauty and tranquility it offers. I totally get that. And make no mistake, at times, I am incredibly jealous of your ability to be in the mountains away from the hustle and bustle of the Valley. I also know many of you share an appreciation of what it means to live in this community surrounded by resorts and ongoing growth and change. At times, this can be a beautiful thing – and at other times, it can be frustrating for you, and us alike. I want you to know how much I appreciate your ongoing support and patience with Solitude, as my team and I continue to figure things out (which we are) and implement smart solutions (which sometimes feels like they come at glacial pace).
As my team and I have delved into the issue of noise, we have learned quite a few things. Last September in 2021, our newly formed Town of Brighton passed and approved the following Noise Restrictions: stating “the Council wishes to enact an ordinance establishing quiet hours within the Town and that prohibits unreasonable noise between the hours of 10:00 pm and 7:00 am”. Prior to that my understanding is that we were all bound by the Salt Lake County Noise Ordinance, found here, which may or may not have been well understood and therefore, possibly not well enforced. If you really want to go deep on the whole noise thing, you can read the County’s Community Noise Pollution Control Health Regulation. This document is helpful in terms of understanding definitions, permissible sound levels, etc.
A couple weeks ago, I invited the Salt Lake County Environmental Health Division to come up and help us evaluate Last Chance Lodge, take noise level readings of our amplified dance music (inside and outside), and provide to us some best management practices on how we can help reduce the levels. What we learned from Cooper & Keith, Environmental Health Scientists with the County, is that the noise ordinance applies only to amplified music – it does not apply to gathering or crowd noise as they called it. Cooper & Keith measured noise inside the Lodge and at the closest residences located off Mountain Glen Lane. In general, what we discovered is that when our speakers were turned up at full bore – the sound levels surrounding the building (including at the closest residences located off Mountain Glen Lane) were roughly 57-58 decibels (or db). However, what we learned is that when we positioned the speaker’s up mountain and kept the south and east side windows closed, we were able to get the levels down to 50db, which is about 5 above ambient readings in this location. We have also purchased a decibel meter that we now use inside with our DJs and bands, and we know if we keep the dbs inside at a certain level in conjunction with changing the speaker direction, and keeping windows closed we are in much better shape. We now have gone two weekends without a complaint in this location. Woo hoo, progress! But we also know we want to solve for this in a more permanent way so we’re moving forward with installing ceiling fans, UV curtains on the lodge windows, and will put a capital plan together to air condition the building for next year. Like most of you, we rely on the mountain air conditioning system, which is wonderful, but all the open windows do allow for a great amount of noise to travel.
As many of you know we ran our Thursday night moves every week last summer and didn’t have any formal issues that we know of, however, this year we’ve had some. So same thing here, we are now positioning the speaker’s up mountain, we have our decibel meter out, we have set a level on the amp, trained our team, – and this last Thursday we seem to have done a bit better. Our friends – Omar & Justin – at UPD are helping us by taking noise level readings at some of the surrounding residences so we can verify levels, last week again for the movie – we were below 50. We will keep this up and stay on top of it. And we are trying to solve for this activity by sourcing a better projector that can operate with higher lumens for us to start our movies earlier. We would rather kick these off around 8-8:30PM, which we think is a better experience for our guests anyway. At this point in time, we have not been able to find one in the supply chain – but we will continue until we do. We are also going to investigate relocating these to a different location for the rest of the summer, we will keep you posted.
As for Thirsty Squirrel, that’s a tougher nut to crack. Our primary issue here has been “crowd or gathering noise” located on the patio after hours, which doesn’t qualify as a violation under the Noise Ordinance. Regardless, we know it creates problems for our owners & guests in the Village who rely on keeping their windows open at night. In the short run, we are going to get some better air flow in there to try to encourage guests to stay inside after 10 PM and our team will also do a better job at educating our guests on keeping it down when outside. Our long-term solution is to look at a more permanent climate solution. We will be in touch with the Powderhorn board to discuss options.
Thank you for all your patience on this matter and helpful feedback, we really appreciate it. Please know, we hear you and are working on this! In the meantime, if you find yourself with concerns on this (or any resort nuisance) – I invite you to reach out to me directly (see contact info below) to discuss. Thank you!
Best,
a.