Waterbury, CT Noise Ordinances: Aircraft Noise (2026)

Section 97.04(E) lists categories exempt from the chapter's noise levels 'subject to special conditions as spelled out,' and item (4) names aircraft flight operations that are 'specifically pre-empted by the Federal Aviation Administration.' The city drafted this exemption because federal law occupies the field of aircraft noise and flight-path regulation, so a municipality cannot set its own decibel ceiling for planes taking off or landing, however loud they read on a sound meter under § 97.03's measurement procedure. That leaves Waterbury residents under a flight path without a local Chapter 97 avenue for a flight-noise complaint; such complaints run to the FAA or the airport operator's own noise-abatement program, not the city's Director of Health or Police Department.

The exemption sits alongside five others in § 97.04(E): emergency noise, daytime domestic power equipment, municipal snow removal, permitted parades and licensed events, and municipal or timed private refuse collection, each carved out of the same table that otherwise caps residential noise at 55 dBA by day and 45 dBA at night. Ground vehicles and equipment used to service aircraft, such as fuel trucks, ground power units and baggage tugs, are not aircraft themselves and remain subject to the ordinary § 97.04 zone limits and the § 97.05 prohibited-activities list, including the truck-idling and exhaust-muffler provisions.