Vancouver’s Northeast False Creek neighbourhood is a unique area of the city, with more than 7,000 residents living near BC Place and Rogers Arena, two of BC’s largest event venues. New developments adjacent to these venues mean residents can be exposed to high noise levels during events, and the number of events per year has been steadily increasing.
While the City had clauses in its noise bylaw to address entertainment noise, proposals for many new, expensive condominiums and the increasing frequency of events at nearby venues led to City staff wonder if the existing bylaw would be enough to protect the livability of these proposed dwellings.
Scope of Services
The City retained BKL in an advisory role from 2008 to 2016 to deal with noise concerns surrounding the development of the Northeast False Creek district.
Action Taken
BKL delivered project-specific services that helped the City find solutions to its problem of managing noise at residences in this new event zone. BKL’s services included the following:
- comparing existing noise by-law limits to other relevant criteria from around the world;
- developing an appropriate noise limit for new dwellings potentially affected by event noise, and presenting this threshold to City staff, council and stakeholders;
- creating a policy for mitigating event-related noise for residential dwellings;
- delivering a guidance document, “Approach for Drafting Protocols for the Monitoring and Management of Event-Related Noise,” to assist with compliance issues;
- helping to amend Vancouver’s noise bylaw to address the new event zone;
- prescribing a method to enable continuous noise monitoring and reporting at one of the venues to ensure event compliance;
- reviewing acoustical reports submitted by developers against the adopted criteria; and
- outlining procedures and reviewing commissioning noise measurements undertaken before the City granted occupancy at new buildings.
Project Benefits
BKL’s commitment to providing high-quality professional services for the duration of the project enabled the City to address livability concerns for proposed residential developments, minimizing its risk as it issued permits and rezoned this developing area.
