Erie, PA Noise Ordinances: Decibel Limits (2026)

Section 206.2 is the 'Permitted uses' list for the city's Industrial Park (IP) zoning district, running from wholesale warehousing and transportation terminals to laboratories, utility operations, and plastics manufacturing. Subsection (b) works as a gate in front of that whole list: no matter how a use is otherwise described in the permitted-use table, it isn't allowed in a Light Industrial Park District if it produces sustained or periodic noise of 60 dBA or more, or nonperiodic bursts of 80 dBA or more, once you measure at either a property line or a residential district line.

That double measurement point matters because it means a loud process can be legal deep inside an industrial park yet become a zoning problem the moment its noise carries as far as a house next door. The section sits alongside Section 206.1's stated purpose of providing 'operational standards for yards, structures and equipment that will minimize traffic congestion, noise, glare, air pollution, fire and safety hazards,' which is the policy basis for treating noise as a use-limiting factor rather than a mere nuisance complaint. No other zoning district in the Erie code carries a numeric decibel ceiling of this kind; elsewhere, loud uses are addressed only through screening, hour restrictions, or referral to the Zoning Hearing Board.