AUGUSTA — Proposed noise rules that seek harmony between businesses with outdoor speakers and their neighbors are up for possible City Council action Thursday.

Councilors meet at 7 p.m. Thursday in council chambers at Augusta City Center.

The proposed rules restrict noise coming from outdoor speakers at most commercial properties in the city to 60 decibels, as measured at their property lines. A reading of 60 decibels is akin to having a face-to-face conversation with someone else and is a lower reading than the sound of a telephone dial tone.

The proposed rules also ban all bullhorn-style speakers, which are often used at ballfields and at car dealerships to broadcast voices outside.

Action on the noise ordinance was postponed last year by city councilors. In response to complaints from local car dealers about a since-removed ban on all outdoor speakers in a previous version of the ordinance, the Planning Board redrafted the proposed changes.

The twice-altered rules met with opposition from car dealers last week, including one of the city’s largest. O’Connor Motors owner Randy Hutchins said the ban on bullhorn-type speakers was unfair and unnecessary.

Hutchins said his company had reduced the volume of outdoor speakers at its Augusta lots, and its neighbors had expressed satisfaction with the new noise levels.

But city councilors said they have heard complaints from at least one resident who said the noise coming from O’Connor’s State Street site was intruding into the neighborhood.

Councilor Cecil Munson said some neighbors living near car dealers have had problems with noise since 1984, and are looking for relief.

“There’s a history, a long history,” Munson said, referring to noise coming from O’Connor lots. “The previous owner said he’d take care of it. Now 20 years have passed, and nothing has happened. What has changed that, all of a sudden, is going to make them so cooperative?”

The Planning Board recommended the new ordinance in a 4-3 vote. The vote was split largely because of the bullhorn speaker ban, according to Matt Nazar, deputy development director for the city.

Councilors on Thursday are also scheduled to:

* consider asking the Planning Board to review the zoning districts within the Eastside Planning Committee study area and recommend two new zoning districts to replace the existing five;

* consider spending $10,000 from the downtown tax increment financing fund to support a proposed new “forgivable” loan program for downtown Augusta businesses, as recommended by the Augusta Downtown Alliance and which would be managed by Kennebec Valley Council of Governments;

* consider changing the land use ordinance to make educational services a permitted use in the Civic Center Development zoning district. The use in that district, which encompasses the University of Maine at Augusta campus, was erroneously eliminated from the district in a 2007 redraft.

* The council also plans to meet in a closed-door session for negotiations on the sale or lease of property.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

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