Bowling Green, KY Noise Ordinances: Industrial Noise (2026)

Bowling Green hosts major industrial users including the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant (Corvette manufacturing), Holley Performance Products, and Houchens Industries' regional operations, all generally located in I-1, I-2, or I-3 industrial zoning districts under the Warren County / Bowling Green joint Zoning Ordinance. The City's noise ordinance (Subchapter 9-3) does not separately publish dBA-by-zone limits at the residential property boundary; in lieu of that, industrial use compatibility is regulated through performance standards in the joint Zoning Ordinance, which is administered by the City-County Planning Commission (warrenpc.org). The Planning Commission's Article 4 governs general development standards and the Warren County zoning ordinance interpretations include performance standards for industrial uses. The City of Bowling Green has also amended Subchapter 9-3 to include exemptions for industrially zoned properties - this reflects the legal posture that industrial operations conducted in compliance with their zoning approvals are not subject to the same nuisance enforcement applied to residential or mixed-use neighborhoods. Where industrial noise crosses zoning boundaries into adjacent residential or business zones (most often at the buffer / transition between an industrial corridor and nearby neighborhoods), enforcement returns to the general 'excessive noise' standard under Section 9-3.01 plus any conditional-use or site-plan conditions imposed by the Planning Commission as part of the original industrial approval.