The City’s new Noise Bylaw

Despite our effort since 2016, Toronto’s new Noise Bylaw, adopted by City Council on April 16 (to come into effect October 1, fails to meet our needs.

The goal of the new bylaw unfortunately has a “one size fits all” approach. It focuses on making simpler regulations that are easy to enforce. The result is a bylaw and enforcement program that provides even less protection from unwanted sounds, issue that an effective bylaw can help address.

Among our concerns are that the new bylaw deleted the General Provision that ensured we can make complaints about unwanted noise, not limited to what the bylaw prohibits and puts the onus on us to make complaints rather than on the noise maker to comply.

Councillor Cressy’s motion to add a provision that “Prohibitions to provide that an exemption permit may be required, at the discretion of the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, if it is determined that there is an unreasonable and persistent noise, during otherwise permitted hours” may help offset issues form unwanted amplified sound.