Sound effects

Bentonville works to adjust the balance

Noise isn’t that easy to define.

Anyone who has ever lived in a multiunit apartment with poorly insulated walls can attest to the ever-changing nature of sound, at least in terms of how it’s received. If you’ve settled in for an evening to cook dinner and it helps to have Adele belting out her hits, that’s entertainment. If you’ve settled in for a nap and your neighbor decides to crank up the same popular singer, that’s a nuisance.

City life is full of sounds. New York is the “city that never sleeps” in part because there’s rarely a moment when the sounds of the city fade. Subways constantly move. People work 24/7. The city offers something to do any hour.

Bentonville is no New York City. There are still late evenings when it seems someone rolled up all the sidewalks (but not the bike trails!). But it’s not the sleepy little company town of yesteryear, either. The question for Bentonville officials concerned about the town’s future is what should a vibrant, larger and continually growing city sound like?

The answer can’t be “shhhhhhhhhhh.” Unless you’re inside a library, a higher level of activity generally means a higher decibel level. Instead of eliminating sounds of a city, which would be impossible, city officials are busy trying to figure out how to keep Bentonville energetic but not clamorous.

Sunday’s news pages told readers about the efforts to update the city’s noise ordinance to balance the competing expectations of businesses, residents and event organizers. City officials say the existing ordinance is focused on how loud sounds get at different times of day and night. They’re looking to adjust the ordinance to include more information about when louder sounds must end.

“What we should be able to tell every business [is], ‘Here’s the time you can play music, up until this point, and then it’s got to be shut off,’” Police Chief Ray Shastid said.

City Planning and Community Development Director Tyler Overstreet refers to “strategic sound management” as opposed to noise enforcement, which sounds like recognition that it would be impossible and even foolish to attempt to stifle the sounds of a lively town. The city, he said, will study and discuss with residents and businesses the kinds of sounds to be expected in an expanding city with an increasingly active nightlife. The point is to find the right balance.

A lot of communities in Northwest Arkansas are transitioning from what they were to something new and different for the future. It’s wise for a city like Bentonville not just to attempt to enforce a noise ordinance as it has long existed, but to ensure whatever measures are on the law books match up with the kind of town Bentonville wants to be.

In addition to getting city ordinances just right, it’s vital that residents’ expectations adjust to the new and developing Bentonville. Ensuring the city is an interesting, even exciting, place to live, to work and to visit from time to time requires some patience. An outdoor music venue, for example, can hardly function under an expectation that musical notes will never drift beyond a property’s border. Placement of such venues will need to be carefully done, but there also has to be acknowledgment that some music on a Saturday afternoon is not the same as music wafting through the air at midnight.

The challenge in every town is how to adjust to the demand for activities as more and more people make their homes in the region. We’re told Northwest Arkansas can expect another half-million people in the next 25 years or so. The likelihood is that more and more of them will be living closer together as cities embrace higher population densities rather than sprawl.

Trying to develop a more sophisticated approach to sounds in a growing city is a good problem to have, really. There are plenty of towns in Arkansas that would love to have such challenges, if they could only get people to stop moving away.

Managing the effects of growth really isn’t optional. It’s a necessity. Bentonville is, wisely, trying to make sure everyone likes the sound of that.