Monterey Park, CA Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Chapter 9.06, adopted under the city's police power in Article XI, Section 7 of the California Constitution, defines a noise disturbance as any loud, raucous, annoying, or unusual noise that offends the peace and quiet of persons of ordinary sensibility and affects an entire neighborhood or a considerable number of people. Section 9.06.040 flatly bars allowing, maintaining, or causing any aircraft to create such a disturbance. Section 9.06.100 layers on a nighttime curfew, prohibiting overflight between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. over all residential areas identified on the general plan's land use map.

Section 9.06.060 sets the minimum safe altitude over populated areas at not less than six thousand feet above ground level, sufficient for an emergency landing if power fails, with law enforcement, emergency aircraft, and city council-approved city events exempted. Section 9.06.070 applies the same six-thousand-foot minimum over any school, religious institution, hospital, or open-air assembly, waivable in writing by the city manager for a school-district-sanctioned activity or a city-sponsored event. Aircraft flying below the minimum safe altitude are separately declared a public nuisance under Section 9.06.110 because low flight causes blight, lowers property values, and threatens public safety.

Acrobatic flying anywhere in or over the city is barred outright by Section 9.06.090, and reckless operation or flying while intoxicated is barred by Section 9.06.030.