Letter to the Clayton Board of Alderman
The CCBA has been working with the Mayor of Clayton and the Clayton Board of Aldermen for the past several months regarding the development of ordinances that are intended to improve the conditions for Clayton Condo Associations relative to the current behaviors of their Commercial Building Neighbors.
This work has resulted in the development of a new lighting ordinance that is currently under consideration by the Board of Aldermen. The letter below is the template that was developed by the CCBA for all of its Member Condos to consider in drafting a letter to their specific aldermen urging certain changes in the ordinance.
Dear Members of the Clayton Board of Aldermen,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Condominium Association. As I believe you know, our condo association is a member of the Clayton Condominium Building Association, (“CCBA”) with its 17 member buildings, representing over 1,600 Clayton residents.
The CCBA sponsored development of a draft new ordinance, “Commercial Building Good Neighbor Ordinance.” This draft ordinance was designed to address some of the various issues impacting on residential developments including condominiums and apartment buildings as a result of their close proximity to commercial buildings. Overall, the ordinance is designed to reinforce the fact that condo and apartment buildings are the place people live and we want the same protections afforded Clayton neighborhood dwellers.
The CCBA met with Mayor Harris and City Manager Gipson to review this draft and it was determined that many of the issues raised were included in other ordinances and just needed better enforcement. However, it was also concluded that the ordinances addressing lighting in the City were not specific enough. From these conversations, the new Lighting Ordinance that the Board of Aldermen reviewed on October 27th was developed.
We want you to know that, overall, we support this draft lighting ordinance; but, we don’t believe it goes far enough. During the discussion at the October 27th Board of Alderman meeting much time was spent on debating the impact of light pollution from one home to the other in the traditional neighborhoods. We want to point out that condominium and apartment buildings can suffer light pollution from the interior lights from neighboring commercial buildings.
The most vivid examples of this are the office and pool lights within the Centene Plaza Building C that have been left on all night long that shine directly into the bedrooms of adjacent Crescent residents. With the continued construction of new commercial properties, we believe this kind of light pollution could become a more widespread problem for condominium and apartment residents throughout Clayton. We ask you as our aldermen to push for internal building light pollution to be included in this new ordinance.
We also have recently learned that early morning delivery truck and trash pickups for commercial buildings are not restricted by ordinance. We are asking the City to consider an ordinance that would restrict deliveries and trash pick up to periods between 7 am and 10 pm Monday through Friday.
We know that our neighbors who live in neighborhoods like Davis Place, Claverack Park, or Aberdeen would not tolerate the loud noises that our citizens who live in condos and apartments located near commercial buildings currently suffer in the early morning and late-night hours. We ask you to support a rewrite of the noise pollution ordinances as well.
We are happy to arrange a meeting with you to discuss these matters further.