Students at the College of William & Mary are making their voices heard in support of relaxing the City of Williamsburg’s noise ordinance.
More than 1,000 people have endorsed a Change.org petition that calls for the Williamsburg City Council to amend the city’s noise ordinance.
Calling it “unreasonably” strict and citing a “disproportionate” effect on students, the petition calls for five changes to the ordinance, including the requirement of a formal complaint process and an increase to the noise limit in most residential areas after 11 p.m. to 75 decibels from 65 decibels.
A normal conversation measures around 60 to 65 decibels.
Josh Fleitman, a William & Mary student and member of the StudentImpact student organization, presented the petition to the city during the City Council meeting Thursday afternoon.
“I’ve seen the effects this law has had on students,” he said. “We are a significant portion of the population and we deserve to have our basic interests and dignity represented in the city’s laws.”
Fleitman said students were not looking for a complete repeal of the ordinance, but wanted a compromise to make its application more equitable across the city.
“It seems as if police are not directly targeting students, they are patrolling neighborhoods where students live more frequently,” he said.
The petition had 1,049 supporters on Change.org as of Friday afternoon.
Council members said they were open to having a discussion with student leaders on examining the ordinance and its effects.
“We just redid the noise ordinance in 2012 and had lots of input from the student assembly, so I think we can to look at it,” Mayor Clyde Haulman said. “I’m not clear what all the issues are, but I’ll certainly ask the police chief to put together data.”
Williamsburg Police Department issued 76 noise violations between 2012 and 2014. Sixty-four of those citations were issued to individuals aged between 19 and 23. More than half of noise violations were cited to residences on four city streets: Griffin Avenue, Cary Street, Matoaka Court and Nelson Avenue – each of which are within a half mile of the college.
Haulman said students’ main problem with the ordinance could be one of perception.
“I’m not sure how big of a problem it is versus how it’s received,” he said.
Councilman Scott Foster, who attended William & Mary as an undergraduate and law student, said reports of noise violations could actually represent simmering neighborhood tensions between students and permanent residents.
“It’s really not only about the sound – it’s about the overall neighborhood dynamics, trash, parking,” he said. “We really need to take a clear look at what it means when someone picks up the phone to call in a noise violation. There’s more to it than just a loud party going on.”
Foster and Haulman both agreed one possible solution could be a graduated violation system, in which first offenses are treated with more lenience than subsequent citations. Haulman suggested replacing the first offense fine of $300 with a warning, while Foster proposed an administrative process that would handle noise violations like traffic tickets.
During the City Council meeting Thursday, Haulman also asked City Manager Jack Tuttle to examine ways to facilitate a community discussion on the ordinance.
The petition has met with mixed reactions from both residents and students so far.
John Austin, a resident of Goodwin Street, spoke against the petition during the open forum period of Thursday’s Council meeting.
“Maybe some parts of Williamsburg can take the change of having later, louder noise going on, but there are areas like our street where it was not built for that purpose,” he said. “If the students follow and live the way … the residents live, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
William & Mary’s official student newspaper, The Flat Hat, also came out against petition, calling it “misleading in its description of the noise ordinance,” although it supported discussing potential changes to the rule with city leaders.
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