What happened? There’s a lot of news about Miami Springs residents complaining of excessive noise emanating from a Hialeah concert last weekend. What’s this all about?
RECAP OF FACTS:
- There’s a new outdoor music venue in southeast Hialeah
- That venue hosted an outdoor concert last weekend from Thursday, December 2nd through Monday, December 6th
- They play Electronic Music (similar to the Ultra Music Festival) with lots of deep bass
- The concert venue is located at 4800 NW 37th Avenue
- The name of the venue is Factory Town
- The venue did have a permit to operate the concert till 5am
- The deep bass from the multi-day concert was heard and felt in nearby portions of Hialeah and throughout much of Miami Springs with reports as far west as Ludlam
Why did so many Miami Springs residents complain?
There are several factors here, but the biggest factor is volume and geography. As you can see below, Hialeah has quirky city boundaries. You can tell the city continued to annex land north and west over the years. You’ll also notice, Hialeah is huge. (Nearly 23 square miles.). Not that you didn’t already know that Hialeah was huge, but this helps to put it into perspective. You’ll also notice the concert venue is in the far southeast corner of Hialeah. In other words, the outdoor concert which operated till 5am on school nights, did not affect the vast majority of Hialeah residents.
However, Miami Springs received the vast majority of complaints. And when you look at the geography, it becomes very clear very fast. The concert venue itself was less than a mile away from City of Miami Springs. Furthermore, the concert venues speakers faced west towards the City of Miami Springs. The speakers didn’t face north or northwest towards the rest of Hialeah. And the speakers didn’t face east towards Brownsville. (Even if the speakers were moved in a different direction, that bass would still travel radially towards Miami Springs. Only one way to find out.)
Look at the map below and you’ll see why most people in Hialeah were not bothered by the sound. You’ll notice we overlayed the map with a gray area representing the sound projection. As you can see, there’s a far greater area of Miami Springs under that sound projection than Hialeah.
Note: The sound projection graphic is for illustrative purposes. We know that there were plenty of people who heard that concert outside the darkened area above, but you get the point. The sound projected from the concert had a greater impact on Miami Springs residents than the residents of Hialeah.
We don’t know if this was by design to minimize impact on Hialeah’s own residents or just circumstantial. We’ll let you be the judge on that one. What is clear is that the concert negatively impacted hundreds of Miami Springs and Hialeah residents.
According to a CBS 4 Miami report, Miami Springs City Manager William Alonso reported 243 noise complaints. We also reached out to the City of Hialeah and the Hialeah Police Department for a records request on the number of complaints they received over the weekend. We’re still waiting to get their official number.
We also saw hundreds of complaints on social media from residents who could not sleep with the loud banging from the bass generated by the concert venue. Here are just a handful of the hundreds of online complaints:
VIDEO FROM OUTSIDE THE VENUE
HIALEAH MAYOR RESPONDS
The new Mayor of Hialeah, Esteban “Steve” Bovo, was quoted by NBC 6 saying, “I think a lot of it has to do with how the speakers were set up. The direction the speakers were pointing in…” He also said, “We support these kinds of events. We want people to come and spend money and understand Hialeah.”
The Miami New Times reported that Mayor Bovo sent them emailed statement “via the city’s communications office, saying Hialeah would work to accommodate the wishes of residents who live near the venue but that he supports bringing more entertainment to the city with businesses like Factory Town.”
The Miami New Times also quoted Bovo’s statement as follows: “The Mayor’s office priority is the wellbeing and growth of Hialeah’s residents. Factory Town is an event that brings a positive cultural and economic impact to our city. At the same time, it is important to find a balance to accommodate this event without negatively impacting the residential lifestyle in this area. We are looking into a solution that will satisfy both parties as we continue to push for Hialeah’s growth for the benefit of its residents.”
SOUND MITIGATION PLAN?
CBS 4 Miami reported that “Part of a 2019 ordinance for Factory Town includes a plan for buffers to minimize visual impacts of light and glare and to mitigate amplified sound.” We’ve asked the Hialeah City Clerk for a copy of that plan. We’ll let you know once we get it.
CONCERT SPEAKERS
We want to be extremely clear that the audio equipment that was used at the Hialeah outdoor concert venue was extremely high end, high wattage equipment. This is far bigger equipment than what your local DJ uses. This is far bigger equipment than anything ever used during the Springs River Festival. This is similar to what’s used during the Ultra Music Festival. It’s that loud.
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PEACE AND QUIET
Ever hear the phrase, “It’s so quiet, you can hear a pin drop.” Well folks, Miami Springs is a quiet town. When you’re in a quiet place, any loud sound will travel. Even in your own home, there’s a big difference at night when the air conditioner is on to when it’s off. When the A/C is off and it’s late at night and there’s no TV or music, you can hear the tiniest of creaks from your own home. So it’s no surprise that Miami Springs residents would hear the pounding bass coming from an Ultra Music Festival type venue in Hialeah
Speaking of Ultra. I used to work at an office at 444 Brickell, just south of the Miami River. Even though we were several stories high and many blocks away from the Bayfront Park venue, the music felt like it was next door. It shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone using or installing these high wattage concert sound systems that the sound would travel for miles.
HIALEAH NOISE
Of course, this isn’t the first or only noise that comes from Hialeah and into Miami Springs. We used to enjoy the sounds of the race cars roaring on Saturday nights from the old Hialeah Raceway. Today we don’t have the Raceway, but we have Okeechobee Road. Okeechobee Road treats Miami Springs residents with the pleasant sounds of daily traffic, Fire Rescue and Police sirens, the rumbling of big semi trucks downshifting to slow down, and the motorcycles revving to insane engine speeds. We don’t like it, but it’s part of having Hialeah as a neighbor and we accepted that long ago.
NOISY NEIGHBORS
We also have noises from our other neighbors. We hear the screeching and clanking from the train yard to our west. And while the train horns are annoying, they don’t repeat like a bass beat for hours on end.
Miami Springs also has a noisy neighbor to the south. Can you get louder than the takeoff from a 747 jumbo jet at Miami International Airport at Miami Springs’ southern border? Can you get a bigger economic benefit to the county than Miami International Airport? And yet even Miami International Airport has limits on its operations during pre-dawn hours in order to provide neighbors with peace and tranquility overnight.
No one can convince me that the economic benefits Hialeah will have from this concert venue outweighs the economic benefit we get from Miami International Airport. There’s no comparison. And again, even hustling bustling MIA gets quiet during the early morning hours. That’s called being a good respectful neighbor.
SOLUTIONS
We love the idea of outdoor festivals. We love the idea of Hialeah upgrading the old and dilapidated warehouse district. We love people having a great time and partying. These are all great things. However, that should not come at the expense of Miami Springs residents losing a peaceful nights sleep.
So, how does Hialeah continue to do these great things while being fair, considerate, and respectful to the rights of their Miami Springs neighbors? We offer the following solutions:
- Follow the Ultra Music Festival Hours:
- Music stops at 11pm on school nights
- Music stops at midnight on Friday and Saturday
- Use substantially less wattage
- Simply put, if we don’t hear it, we don’t care when it ends
- Move the party indoors
- It would be cool to see Hialeah become a modern day version of the Coconut Grove / South Beach scene from the ’90s.
- All those great clubs and venues were indoors
- It also helps with our unpredictable weather
- Reposition the speakers
- I don’t have complete faith this will work as bass tends to carry in an omnidirectional fashion, but it’s worth a try
These are a handful of solutions. We’d like to hear about some constructive solutions that allows Hialeah to develop a burgeoning entertainment district while respecting our right to a peaceful quiet night. What do you think? And please don’t say you’re thinking of driving around the Bovo residence till 5 am blasting out old school Two Live Crew in protest. That won’t exactly be very productive, even though he might get a sense for what Springs residents experienced last week while you get arrested for disturbing the peace.
Hialeah Mayor Bovo
Mayor Bovo inherited this situation. He appears to be a reasonable man with ambitions for a bright future for Hialeah. These are great things. I think he understands its not nice to keep your neighbors awake at night as what happened last week. Let’s see how this moves forward.
But let’s be clear. Blasting music into Miami Springs till 5am will not be tolerated.
UPDATE: Mayor Mitchell Meets Mayor Bovo
Miami Springs Mayor Maria Mitchell has reportedly met with Hialeah Mayor Bovo to work out a solution over this problem. Here’s what Mayor Mitchell posted to social media:
“Thank you Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo for meeting with me today to discuss ways to effectively mitigate the Factory Town venue’s late night loud music disturbances experienced by both Hialeah and Miami Springs residents. Looking forward to the City of Hialeah implementing solutions that work for all sides.” – Miami Springs Mayor, Maria Mitchell
Next Hialeah Council Meeting
Hialeah’s next City Council Meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 7pm at Hialeah City Hall.
Local Media Coverage
As you may have noticed, the local media has slowly, but surely started to pickup on this story. Here’s some of the local coverage:
NBC 6:
Miami Springs at Odds With Hialeah Over Noise Complaints From Art Week Parties
CBS 4 MIAMI:
MIAMI NEW TIMES:
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-springs-residents-noise-complaints-factory-town-hialeah-13470673
UNIVISION
Prior coverage on MiamiSprings.com:
Hialeah’s new “Factory Town Entertainment Sub-District Pilot Program.” has disturbed our sleep!
Outdoor Hialeah Concerts till 5am: Sleepless Nights in Miami Springs
The DOT routinely erects noise abatement barriers alongside their highways in order to minimize the noise to the residential areas. I don’t understand why the DOT adopted the useless Bougainvillea planters as opposed to a real honest to goodness barrier to mitigate the noise from the Hialeah Autobahn; AKA Okeechobee Road AKA US 27.
Perhaps someone on the council could pick this up as a project, instead of a pedestrian bridge, and lobby DOT before Hialeah decides to have another shindig.