Siskiyou County, CA Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

The County does not regulate aircraft noise through a general noise ordinance (it has none). Instead, land-use compatibility around airports is governed by the Siskiyou County Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan, adopted by the County's Airport Land Use Commission under California's State Aeronautics Act. The ALUCP's principal compatibility concerns include exposure to aircraft noise, and it uses the Community Noise Equivalent Level (CNEL), the noise metric adopted by the State of California for evaluating airport noise impacts, depicted as contour lines of equal noise exposure around an airport. The Plan applies to the airport influence areas of public-use airports in the County, including in the unincorporated area, and requires that certain actions, such as general/specific plan amendments, zoning or building changes, and airport master plan changes affecting an airport influence area, be referred to the Airport Land Use Commission for a consistency determination before local approval, where noise is among the issues reviewed. The ALUCP also designates highly noise-sensitive uses (for example, schools, day care centers, libraries, hospitals, nursing homes, and outdoor theaters) for special siting scrutiny near runways. Importantly, this is land-use compatibility planning to keep incompatible noise-sensitive development away from airport noise, not a limit a resident can use to stop an individual aircraft's flight noise; actual aircraft operations are regulated federally by the FAA, not by the County.