The dollar cost of noise in some of its aspects is vague, hard to put one's finger on, although certainly real enough. But the loss in real estate value is plain for all to see.
In the cities, noise is a chief cause of rental turnover in new apartment buildings. Frederick P. Rose, president of a New York building management company, and a one-time delegate to the United Nations Housing Conference, says, "Of all the complaints owners hear, lack of soundproofing heads the list. And this is borne out by the experience of managing agents from coast to coast."
On Manhattan's Sixth Avenue, one apartment building had its "Apartments Available" sign out for two years because of the subway extension. It reportedly lost $7,000 a month in vacancies and unrenewed leases. Restaurants and shops in this noise-inundated neighborhood also suffered sales losses as office workers and residents detoured to quieter streets. Even banks reported a decline in off-the-street transactions.
Transportation systems—sub-surface, surface, and in the air—can be most damaging to the value of property. The Canadian government was so concerned about the decline of property values near railroad tracks that it conducted a study of the problem. The research suggested that land zoned "residential" may be depressed below its normal value unless it is 500 to 1,000 feet from the right-of-way. In Sacramento County, California, it was found that foreclosed houses on lots bordering a highway took ten months or more longer to resell than similar foreclosed houses in the same tracts away from a noisy highway.
How does one compute the cost of highway noise, noise so disturbing to sleep that in 1961 eight communities along the New York section of the New England Thruway organized the Thruway Noise Abatement Committee? The local officials felt it was more than worth the $15,000 for noise tests and the four years of time spent in politicking to get New York State to enact the first decibel limit for motor vehicles. Their motivation was the protection of homes near highways, homes the value of which could be as readily depreciated as once were homes near railroad tracks.
The most audible cries of anguish come from people unfortunate enough to own property near airports. Not too many years ago, a Congressional hearing received this list of litigation due to aircraft noise:
Atlanta-73 suits pending for a total of $5 million;
Memphis-20 suits pending, aggregating $2 million;
New York-A suit filed by 808 plaintiffs against 39 airlines and the Port of New York Authority, totaling $1 million;
Seattle-200 suits pending, totaling $1 million;
Los Angeles-38 claims, totaling $1 million.
Other claims in Ontario and San Francisco, California; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Jackson; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; Omaha; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio; Spokane, and Tampa;
Suits threatened in Dayton and Nashville.
This sort of thing goes on all over. In Paris, ten town councils filed suits against Air France and Pan American Airways for noise nuisance, asking damages in the millions, covering costs of soundproofing buildings near Orly Airport. In Norway, 32 homeowners sued the Ministry of Defense and Communications and won 185,000 kroner, about $26,300, for discomfort and property devaluation caused by jet noise.
Cities pay in the deterioration of their neighborhoods. Acoustician Lew Goodfriend hit where it hurts when he observed that the geographically extensive impact of aviation and highway noise affects the entire social and economic structure of the city. "This could be serious if it results in middle and upper class families abandoning neighborhoods, quietly and without fanfare, leaving them to the next lower economic level for whom the neighborhood, noisy or not, is a step upward."
This deterioration is happening. In Miami, it is reported that because ofjet runways built near a housing development, people who could afford to moved away in spite of tax benefits. Whereas earlier the residents of that development represented a median income group of $15,000 to $20,000 a year, in six years the income range dropped to between $7,000 and $8,000.
When supersonic aircraft climb into the wild blue yonder, they send back calling cards in the form of sonic booms. It is reported that in 1965, the Air Force received 3,000 formal complaints, and paid out some $250,000 in reparations. An Interior Department study makes the "conservative estimate [that] the expected continuing annual cost of the repair of damages to houses and other structures, not counting the cost of processing claims or inspection of damages, is at least $35 million, and possibly more than $80 million per year."
Expensive, isn't it, this noise business?