Oyster Bay, NY Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Section 156-4B(9), part of the Town's Noise chapter, carves aircraft entirely out of the chapter's reach. It states that nothing in the section shall be construed to prohibit, restrict, penalize, enjoin or in any manner regulate the movement of aircraft, so long as that movement is conducted in accordance with applicable federal, state and local law. Every other paragraph of § 156-4B sets a noise-disruption standard and, in several cases, quiet hours for radios, loudspeakers, construction equipment, domestic power tools and motorized vehicles; aircraft is the one category the Town Board chose to exempt rather than regulate.

That leaves flight and airport noise controlled by federal aviation law and, for the region's airports, by Federal Aviation Administration and airport noise-abatement programs rather than by a Town ordinance. The exemption sits inside the same chapter that empowers the Department of Environmental Resources to enforce every other noise category, underscoring that the Department has no jurisdiction over aircraft operations. Residents near flight paths who want to pursue a noise complaint must go through the FAA or an airport's own noise office; Town Hall has no permit, curfew or fine mechanism for aircraft under Chapter 156.

The provision has not been narrowed by the 2022 and 2023 revisions to the chapter's enforcement and penalty sections, which touched administration, not the aircraft carve-out.