A top City of Renton official has granted a noise variance for most of the nights requested by the team designing and building the next phase of the Interstate 405 widening project through Renton.
Whether the team gets the rest of the nights would depend on how well it manages the noise from a project intended to help unclog the most congested stretch of freeway in the state.
Neil Watts, the City of Renton Development Services director, last week gave the I-405 Corridor Design Builders team 280 nights during which it doesn’t have to follow the restrictions of the city’s Noise Ordinance.
The team had asked for 319 non-consecutive nights at a July 7 administrative hearing on their request for the noise variance. “We tried to economize as much as possible,” project manager Alan Brown told Watts at the hearing.
However, the fewer nights will work, too, Brad Shinn, a spokesman for the design/build team, said Monday.
The conditions Watts included with the variance were expected, he said.
“We can definitely work with it,” Shinn said. There is no plan to appeal Watts’ decision, which is final if there is no appeal.
Watts said Monday he wasn’t expecting an appeal.
The project includes the addition of a new lane in each direction of I-405 between SR 167 and SR 169, the removal of the Benson Road bridge over the freeway, the removal of 200,000 yards of dirt and rock to make way for a new onramp and construction of a half-diamond interchange at Talbot Road.
The I-405 Corridor Design-Builders is a joint venture of CH2M Hill and Gary Merlino Construction. The team is doing the work under an $83.6 million contract from the Washington state Department of Transportation.
The public should see some obvious signs later this week that the project is under way.
Crews will begin clearing and grading the east side of I-405 near City Hall to make way for the new onramp to northbound I-405. None of that work will trigger the noise variance, according to Shinn.
In all, about 200,000 yards of soil and rock will be moved by conveyor belt to a site not far away just below Cedar Avenue on Renton Hill.
Project officials told Watts at the hearing and neighbors along Cedar Avenue later that they would remove only those trees and other vegetation that’s absolutely necessary to get the work done.
The city doesn’t have any control over how the grading and fill work is done, because the work is in the state-controlled right of way for I-405, Watts said. However, one of his conditions limits operations of the conveyor system to daytime hours only.
Watts also limited grading and construction activity to what’s known as the “surplus site” to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
The noise variance covers construction activity during the nighttime hours between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
One of Watts’ guiding principles in setting the conditions was to keep the Washington state Department of Transportation “engaged” in the construction work and control of the noise that work generates.
The city has “full confidence” in the transportation department that the agency has the experience – more so than the design/build team – to use all tools at hand to keep the work as quiet as possible, Watts said.
In essence, the team will have to show it can control the noise if it wants additional nights to do work. Watts will review the team’s performance in a year; at that time, he could impose new conditions or add more nights to the noise variance.
“They have to demonstrate that they are doing the best they can to keep the noise levels down,” Watts said Monday.
The city also has the right to revoke the variance if any conditions aren’t met, he said. That’s tougher than a condition suggested by Don Persson, who testified at the hearing that the city should revoke the variance after three violations.
