[slapshot]

In America, people would build their houses around an industrial zone and then complain about the industry -- this happens all the time. For some nuisances, like airports, it has broader impacts beyond just the industrial zone.

[AWildC182]

Gotta love the people who think they're real estate geniuses for buying cheap houses near an airport then realizing the airport is loud so they try to close it.

Don't buy a house off the end of a runway unless you want to listen to my 230HP of bug smashing power...

[shados]

An issue we hit recently was our place, while near-ish an airport (well, a couple of miles away), didn't have much issues. Then several years after we bought, they changed their software I guess (thats the story anyway) which decided all planes should go over our house, and at much lower altitude than they historically would.

So literally one day everything is fine, then the next its hell. Then people started saying "Well its your fault for buying near an airport". That wasn't great :(

[AWildC182]

You can talk to the FAA and the airport about it, though it helps to get educated about how it all works and come at it from the point of view of trying to help keep everyone happy.

Start with what type of airport is it here: https://skyvector.com/

Is it Bravo (big blue circles around it, major commercial airport), Charlie (medium maroon circles, large secondary commercial), Delta (small single dark blue dashed circle, small controlled airport), or uncontrolled (no circle or dashed magenta, local GA airport)?

If it's one of the first three, see if you can find the Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs) and Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) and see where they put aircraft in relation to you and at what altitudes (underlined altitudes are minimum, overlined are maximum).

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_... (can also find them on skyvector for your airport)

Also try to see if they've been changed lately as this is the most likely culprit.

If it's an uncontrolled airport, try talking to them about noise abatement and see if you might be able to work something out.

[mjcohen]

Santa Monica, California.

[mywittyname]

This is just another type of arbitrage. Buy up property that's undervalued due to a nuisance, make the property more appealing by resolving the nuisance, then sell the property for a profit.

This isn't fundamentally different from fixing up some old house.

[dsfyu404ed]

Well except that arguably fixing your house screws nobody whereas shutting down a small airport or racetrack screws everyone that formerly used it.

[mywittyname]

Shutting down a nuisance is doing the entire neighborhood a favor, and that land can be repurposed to provide more housing in an area that sorely needs it.

The airports and race tracks were almost certainly built in the middle of nowhere originally. They can relocate some place that's currently a middle of nowhere. Airports and race tracks should exist in areas where land is cheap and abundant, not in places where lots of people want to live.

The land owners make a huge profit from selling the land to developers, current residence see their property values go up, and more people have the opportunity to live closer to work.

Sometimes things have to change for the better.

[xyzzyz]

If people complaining about the nuisance compensate the airport for the cost and the trouble moving somewhere else, then sure, I'm all for it.

[AWildC182]

Or we could zone appropriately for higher density housing to slow the spread of urban sprawl and not have to rebuild our airports every few years because people are incapable of doing basic research on their investments?

[mywittyname]

Who's saying to rebuild these every few years? Most of these small airports are 40+ years old. Cities change a lot over those time periods.

Why not both zone for higher density and get rid of small urban airports? Airports are antithetical to high-density living.

[AWildC182]

Other than causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs?

[saltminer]

The freight trains that went by my college couldn't use their horns at night because of entitled transplants. Nevermind that these trains had been running before the college was founded, much less before any real development occurred in the area, clearly it's the poor homeowners who are suffering from the evil railroads because how can they be expected to do the least bit of research and find out that there's an active railway nearby when touring homes? Doesn't matter that it leads to more idiots who don't believe the crossing guards getting their cars destroyed, or that night shift workers still get to sleep through the horns during the day, the only thing that's important is their personal convenience because moving takes more effort than whining to the city council.

[shados]

A big issue IMO is that cities insist on having one size fit all noise ordinances, and then use "guts feeling" to enforce it, or have "ambient noise" clauses to justify where they are enforced. That means without a LOT of research, you can never really know whats acceptable in an area, and you certainly cannot count on the real estate agent or neighbors to tell you, property value impact and all.

In my town, we have a noise ordinance where the max decibel is way too high for a quiet residential area, but way too low for the downtown neighborhoods. So you get a lot of "You live in a city, expect noise!". But not everywhere in the city is the same! So it's just enforced nilly willy. People can't easily make a choice. Some neighborhoods are obvious, some are not. Some parts of the city are only noisy in summer, some only in winter, and so on.

Noise ordinances should be tied to zoning in some way. Then if people buy a house near a train, they can't bitch about the train noise. At the same time, if someone wants a cheaper house and don't give a fuck about the noise, they just got themselves a great deal!

There's one catch: realistically, most people care about noise to some degree. Once you have it clearly "labeled", properties in less noisy areas will become more expensive and you'll have segregation by income. The rich will live in quiet areas, the poor in noisy ones. Oh, and then people with kids screaming louder than the train will claim it doesn't apply to them (even though 95% of the kids in the area will be doing just fine).

Its a tough problem, but IMO, the easier we make it for like minded people to live together, the better. Right now, regardless of your criterias, if you want to live in an area that meets criteria X for a long period of time, you have to get lucky AND go all NIMBY when things change. It just so happens that things like housing density is the topic of the day.

Zoning laws being absurdly restrictive is often used to explain why not enough is built (eg: single family housing). But if zoning forced skyscrappers, it would be just as restrictive.

[mjevans]

I would really like air exchange systems to be mandated, and the a noise rating that includes testing with windows shut.

If I shut my windows I should NOT be able to hear the kids screaming outside nor other loud outside things (emergency sirens/etc).

[shados]

I wish. I don't even remember the last time I opened my windows. I have a white noise machine, I live with headphones, I sleep with earplugs.

NOTHING stops the sound of kids screaming. Nevermind the jack hammers starting at 6:30 am (because fuck enforcing noise ordinances in a deadend of a usually quiet neighborhood!).

Made worse because I live in a city where even "high end" constructions are made out of cardboard (yeah, I'm planning on moving, but thats not easy, and who's to say the place I move to won't be just as bad?)

[FireBeyond]

> idiots who don't believe the crossing guards getting their cars destroyed

I find it hard to accept that the kind of idiot that rolls through/around a downed crossing guard is suddenly going to be swayed into common sense by the sound of a horn. Both equally imply "impending train".

[pkaye]

Happened in our city. A child card center was build near a rockery and now they are complaining of rock dust.