Norfolk, VA Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Section 26-5 opens with "No provision of this chapter applies to:" and then lists fifteen categories of noise the city has chosen not to regulate. Item (8) exempts aircraft under FAA jurisdiction, meaning the Norfolk Police Department, the agency Sec. 26-3(a) authorizes to enforce Chapter 26, has no authority to write a noise citation for a flyover, engine run-up, or flight event tied to fixed-wing or rotary aircraft. This matters in Norfolk specifically because the city hosts Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base, plus fixed-wing traffic tied to Chambers Field and nearby NAS Oceana approach patterns; without the exemption, those operations would generate constant per se and scientific-measurement violations under Sec.

26-6. The exemption sits alongside similar carve-outs for emergency vehicles (26-5(2)), locomotives (26-5(7)), and church bells (26-5(9)), all reflecting activities the city council judged outside its practical or legal reach to regulate through the noise chapter. Sec. 26-4's Class 3 misdemeanor penalty and $500 fine, and the nuisance-abatement injunction remedy in Sec. 26-4(b), never attach to an aircraft noise source because Sec. 26-5 removes it from "any provision of this chapter" before the penalty section is ever reached. Anyone disturbed by aircraft noise must pursue relief through the FAA's complaint channels rather than the city, since Norfolk has affirmatively declined jurisdiction over that noise source in its own code.