Palm Beach Gardens, FL Noise Ordinances: Decibel Limits (2026)

Sec. 78-661 sets citywide performance standards protecting adjacent property occupants from injurious noise, vibration, smoke, dust, odor, glare and other nuisances, and applies to all uses in the city. Subsection (b) fixes equivalent sound levels measured at the property line: a residential noise source may not exceed 60 dBA between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m., dropping to 50 dBA between 11:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.; a non-residential noise source is capped at 65 dBA during the day and 60 dBA overnight; and where the use receiving the noise is industrial, the ceiling is 75 dBA at any time.

The section carves out an exemption for temporary construction and maintenance noise between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on any day except Sundays and federal holidays, meaning ordinary daytime construction noise during that window does not count against the dBA limits, while construction noise outside those hours or on Sundays and holidays is not exempt and must meet the standard limits. The same section, traced to Ord. No. 17-2000 and later amended by Ord. No. 19, 2010 and Ord. No. 7, 2017, also regulates odor, glare, ionizing radiation, ground vibration, smoke, dust, toxic discharge and electromagnetic interference at the property line, but the decibel figures in subsection (b) are the only numeric noise thresholds the code sets; there is no separate nighttime curfew ordinance layered on top of these performance standards for ordinary noise sources.