In March, C-VILLE reported on neighbors’ longtime concern about industrial noise coming from Allied Concrete Company—established on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood in 1945.
North Downtowners near the concrete company’s Harris Street location complained about not being able to sleep through utility vehicles’ shrill-sounding backup beepers.
“We are very sensitive to the fact that we want to be good neighbors and not noisy ones,” Allied President Ted Knight says, maintaining he’s never received a citizen complaint in his three years of presidency and that backup alarms can’t be disabled because they’re a required safety device for equipment used on-site. But after “Noisy neighbors: Residents ask Allied Concrete to quiet down” was published, Knight says he and his cohorts started researching ways they could refine the ruckus.
They discovered an approved backup alarm that uses dissipating white noise instead of beeping, and they have since bought and installed it on all equipment on their Charlottesville site, according to Knight.
But wait, there’s more: This winter, folks at Allied are scheduled to build a 10-foot wall across the back of their lot on McIntire Road to help buffer the last of the loudness.
Colette Hall, who has lived in downtown Charlottesville for 16 years and served on the North Downtown Residents Association board for 12, five as president, says the noise has been consistent over the years and she’s happy to hear of plans for a noise-buffering wall.
“As a former neighborhood president, I am always encouraged to hear of local cooperation,” Hall says. “However, the proof is in the pudding.”