• Specialty

  Noise / Vibration
  

• SECTOR

  Commercial
  Government
  Municipal
  

• TYPE

  Environmental Study
  Permitting / Compliance
  

• CLIENTELE

  Private Sector
  

• TIMESPAN

  2012

• LOCATION

  Andover, MA

Rolling Green 40B Residential Development

SERVICE:

HUD Sound Study

DESCRIPTION:

BTLR, LLC wanted to build a residential development at the Rolling Green Site in Andover, MA. Because the project would be federally funded, a sound compliance test needed to be conducted to assess potential impacts to the people living inside the development as well as determine compliance with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Site Acceptability Standard. The HUD standard is a Day-Night (Ldn) sound level of 65 dBA with a 10 - dB penalty applied during the nighttime hours from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Tech set up a sound monitoring system in the courtyard to represent the location of the proposed Building B site. The sound monitor collected measurements over one day (24 hours) and the data was analyzed following HUD guidelines. The measured Ldn level from the site was at the HUD standard of 65 dBA. Therefore, Tech was able to certify that the proposed courtyard sound level would meet the HUD Site Acceptability Standard. Tech also performed a sound barrier evaluation to minimize sound impacts in the courtyard of the nearest proposed building to I-93 using the FHWA-approved Traffic Noise Model (TNM2.5). The results of the barrier evaluation were presented at an Andover Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) meeting.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Key Points

• For a federally-funded residential development, a sound study needed to be performed to determine compliance with the HUD Site Acceptability Standard.
• Tech performed the sound monitoring, calculated the Ldn sound level, and concluded that the Ldn of the site would be 65 dBA, meeting the HUD Standard.