Santa Clara County, CA Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Subsection (14) of § B11-154 is the helicopter entry in Santa Clara County's list of specific prohibited noise acts. It sets up separate tests depending on the time of day. At night, a helicopter is in violation if it breaks the nighttime provisions of Section B11-152, so the nighttime figure is not restated in the helicopter subsection and has to be read from that section. During the day, the subsection supplies its own number: the helicopter may not cause a noise that exceeds 80 dBA in residential or commercial areas. The daytime figure is tied to those area types by name, and the quoted text does not extend it to other kinds of land.

The wording reaches more than the pilot. The county prohibits both "operating" and "permitting to be operated" any helicopter that breaks either test, so a person who allows the flight can be responsible along with the person flying it.

Both tests carry the same condition, "without a variance." A helicopter operation that would otherwise break the limits is allowed if a variance has been issued under § B11-157. The subsection then closes with a flat exemption: military and government-operated helicopters are exempted from its provisions. Privately operated helicopters are not named in that exemption.

The provision was adopted by Ord. No. NS-517.72, § 2, dated 4-15-03. It sits directly before subsection (15), which bars installing a fixed noise source in the side yards of any residence without a variance, and before Sec. B11-155 on motor vehicle noise limits. Like the rest of the county's noise-disturbance chapter, it applies only outside the 15 incorporated cities, each of which regulates helicopter noise separately where it has authority to do so.