Noise controversy before Petaluma City Council

<p>Petaluma City Council members will have to make a choice today between two sides of a noise dispute in the river warehouse district, a mixed-used neighborhood intended to blend residences and businesses on the same bustling streets.</p><p>At issue are noise, traffic, parking and potential expansion impacts of Cowgirl Creamery and Three Twins Ice Cream, whose businesses are just across First Street from the Celsius 44 condos. Cowgirl Creamery has been at the site for seven years. The condos were built in 2008.</p><p>Neighbors said the noise became a problem when Three Twins began leasing space from the creamery in 2010.</p><p>The businesses say they meet all city codes for noise and other issues and said they have bent over backwards to reduce impacts for their neighbors. That includes spending about $80,000 to deaden equipment noise with an insulated enclosure.</p><p>Businesses and residents in the Foundry Wharf area live largely in harmony. Many residents of the homes and condos moved specifically to be part of a lively, eclectic, diverse neighborhood.</p><p>But the creamery conflict highlights the sticky issues that can arise when sometime-noisy businesses and homes share such close quarters, something Petaluma, like other Sonoma County cities, encourages with infill development and mixed-use projects.</p><p>In February, despite impassioned pleas from several neighbors, the city's Planning Commission voted 7-0 in favor of the businesses. More than two dozen speakers supported the creamery.</p><p>City Councilman Mike Healy said it doesn't appear there are any new issues beyond what planners already ruled on. A staff report recommends the council deny the residents' appeal.</p><p>Neighborhood leader Gail Odom, a retired county planner, is asking the council to overrule planners on several issues. In her appeal, she asked that the council reconsider approvals of the creamery's use permit, require an environmental review of the businesses, require additional sound baffling and continuous sound monitoring, make the businesses move the noisy machinery to the side of the parcel facing the river, and restrict the businesses, their employees or customers from parking on the condo side of the city street.</p><p>The appeal also asks the city to revisit the overall mixed-use plan for the warehouse area.</p><p>In their report to the council, city planning staff essentially sided with the businesses on every request.</p><p>The report says the businesses' approved uses are exactly what the zoning calls for, their noise is below city decibel limits, and that the request for parking restrictions amounts to a request for preferential parking on behalf of the condo owners. The council meeting begins at 7 p.m. at City Hall.</p><p>Contact Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.</p>