Track Noise Dispute Shifts Into High Gear

SOMIS — Glenn and Cathy Burow used to look forward to quiet Sunday afternoons at home in their rural neighborhood.

“We used to sit on the porch and read the paper,” Cathy Burow said. “We can’t do that anymore.”

Things changed two months ago when landowner Daniel Schoenewald built a makeshift motorcycle racetrack next-door.

Now “it’s this constant high-pitched vaaa-rooom-va-rooom,” Cathy Burow said. “We just want the tranquillity back.”

After a weekend racing event at the 300-foot-long track last month, about 20 neighbors banned together in an effort to halt the activity. With a barrage of protest letters and phone calls, they are now soliciting the help of county supervisors.

But Schoenewald, 44, believes he did nothing wrong by building the track on the agriculture-zoned land and allowing his family and friends to ride there. The business owner who lives on an estate near Camarillo and owns the 20-acre Somis property says the motorcycles are not that noisy compared to the farming equipment used by his neighbors who are complaining.

“It’s nothing as loud as a tractor, clipper, shredder or pump any one of these people use on their lemon orchards,” said Schoenewald, who designs, builds and manufactures motor controls at his Camarillo company, Advanced Motion Controls.

On Tuesday, Schoenewald tried to illustrate his point when he and a few friends rode around the track with a decibel reader. The gauge reached 63 decibels when it was held about 50 feet from the motorcycles circling the track. By contrast, it reached 81 decibels when held about 3 feet from where Schoenewald’s fellow motorcycle enthusiast Dana Hoover stood raising his voice.

“The one-cylinder motorcycles we ride here are 17 times smaller than Harleys, which are legal to ride on the streets,” said Schoenewald, who owns a collection of 30 classic motorcycles. “And I’ll say this, they are 17 times quieter than Harleys.”

Further, when sheriff’s deputies visited his property recently after neighbors complained, they did not issue him a ticket or tell him and his friends to stop racing, Schoenewald said.

“They came here busting chops, thinking that we were all a bunch of long-haired hippies doing drugs,” Schoenewald said. “But when they saw grand prix champions and people who have millions tied up in real estate, and that there were less than 10 bikes, they said there was no problem.”

Even some supervisors were unsure whether Schoenewald, a 10-year Ventura County resident, was breaking any law by racing on his property.

“He couldn’t use the track for commercial use,” Supervisor Kathy Long said. “That I know. But if it’s just for families and friends, he may not need a permit.”

But county code enforcement officers may put the brakes on Schoenewald’s plan for future weekend racing events or any motorcycle riding. Todd Collart, the county’s zoning administration manager, said motocross tracks are not allowed on agriculture-zoned land.

Schoenewald, however, said his motorcycles are not nearly as noisy as motocross bikes.

If Schoenewald had a home on the land, he might be able to apply for a conditional use permit, Collart said. But the property is filled with only avocado orchards.

“After he receives his notice of violation, he has 30 days to abate without any penalties,” Collart said, adding that a notice was mailed to him on Monday.

Although Schoenewald still thinks he doesn’t need a permit, he said his long-range goal for the land is to grow a pasture and raise alpacas. He said he will sell the wool from the small Peruvian llamas.

“It’ll be a track only until I can make it a meadow,” Schoenewald said. “It’s just a little itty-bitty track and we’re going to be gone in a month or so. I really want to work with these people. We can work everything out.”

But some neighbors think otherwise.

Aldo and Norma Dalla Betta are still fuming over their Thanksgiving when they say their family gathering was ruined by the alarming sound of motorcycles.

“It was very annoying,” Norma Dalla Betta said. “We’re all very disturbed by what has happened to our neighborhood.”