Tippecanoe County, IN Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Chapter 150 of the Tippecanoe County Code, adopted by Ordinance 77-32 in 1977 to regulate construction near airports located in the county, sets building-permit conditions administered by the county's Office of Building Permits. 02 requires an applicant to first obtain a permit from the Aeronautics Commission of Indiana before the county will issue certain building permits near an airport. Division (B) of that section is the noise-specific piece: it flatly prohibits erecting a residential building or any other building designed for noise-sensitive uses within an area lying 1,500 feet of either side of the extended center line of a runway, for a distance of one nautical mile from the boundaries of any public-use airport.

This sits alongside the height-restriction rules in division (A), which separately cap structures near runways using a 1-foot-vertical-to-20-foot-horizontal ratio within 2,000 feet of an airport boundary, a 500-foot absolute cap within a one-mile radius of any structure, and a 100-foot cap within three and one-half nautical miles of an airport's geographic reference point, all cross-referencing Federal Air Regulations Part 77. The Office of Building Permits will not issue the underlying building permit until the Indiana Aeronautics Commission permit is on file, giving the county a documentary checkpoint before construction starts inside these zones.

Because Tippecanoe County includes Purdue University Airport and the general aviation traffic that comes with it, this section functions as the county's de facto noise buffer, keeping new housing and other noise-sensitive uses out of the highest-overflight corridor along extended runway centerlines rather than setting a decibel limit.