When Lakewood resident Freddy Hill purchased his home in Birdtown 15 years ago, he was hesitant about living directly across from a factory.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Hill said. “Every once in a while you would hear something over the loudspeaker, but that was it. There was no omnipresent, consistent droning noise.”
In April 2022, he said, everything changed.
“They have vacuums and compressors that now run 24 hours a day, and the noise doesn’t stop,” Hill said. “It’s unrelenting – like a mosquito hanging right above your head that won’t go away.”
The Birdtown neighborhood, located in the southeastern corner of Lakewood, sits adjacent to NeoGraf Solutions, LLC. The manufacturer of specialty graphite products has been operating in Lakewood for over a century, and was acquired by Edgewater Capital Partners in early 2023.
Hill believes that there’s a clash between the industrial nature of the areas bordering Birdtown, and the safety and comfort of its residents.
According to the city of Lakewood’s noise ordinance, noise in residential areas cannot exceed 50 decibels from 9 a.m.- 8 p.m. Hill claims that every time he takes a decibel reading inside his home, it consistently reads over 50 decibels.
“The problem is, our area of Lakewood is zoned industrial, and the decibel reading violation is only for residential neighborhoods,” Hill said. “The noise generation is on an industrial side, but the readings and the annoyances on our residential side. That’s the major conflict.”
A systemic failure
Ralph and Mary Piunno, who moved to Birdtown in 2018, view the noise disturbance as failure on a systemic level. The couple live at the intersection of Madison and Lark, and have been vocal about the noise issues since spring 2022.
“You call the police and they’ll come out, they’ll measure it and say, ‘Yeah, it’s over the limit,’” Mary said. “But they can’t do anything about it.”
According to a study from the National Institute of Health, nighttime and daytime noise levels are higher for census block groups with higher proportions of nonwhite and lower-socioeconomic status residents.
According to the U.S Census Bureau, the Birdtown neighborhood has a median household income of $26,480 — less than half of Lakewood’s median household income of $65,925. It is also the neighborhood with the highest number of rental units.
“Of course, when there’s an issue with noise pollution in an affluent suburban town, it happens in the poor neighborhood, the only multicultural neighborhood — the one place that legislation and the police department refuse to deal with,” said Hill.
Taking a stand
Former Ward 4 councilwoman Cindy Marx was the first point of contact for many residents complaining about the noise. She states that she advocates for Birdtown and its residents whenever there’s an issue.
“People used to say to me that I cared more about the North End of Lakewood, with the condos and such — more than I cared about Birdtown,” Marx said. “That’s certainly not the case. That’s not me at all.”
Marx claims to have met with NeoGraf representatives shortly after the noise complaints started to arise.
“Their compressor parts were coming from Germany, and this was right after COVID,” Marx said. “Because of the supply chain interruption, it took a long time for these parts to arrive. Once they came, they repaired the compressor, and representatives claimed the noise problem was solved.”
Hill said that Marx was very responsive to his grievances.
“She has a contact inside the factory, and anytime the noise gets really bad, I’ve always been able to send her a text, and she’d come out and try to find a solution.”
But some residents, Hill says, believe Marx’s efforts fell short.
“I believed her when she said that she was trying to get something done. Most people didn’t, only because there was no progress,” Hill said.
In July 2024, after frustration with the city, the Piunnos set out to compose an open letter to Timothy Flanagan, CEO of NeoGraf, complete with a log of decibel readings spanning from March 2024 to June 2024, and over fifty signatures from Birdtown residents.
“Your decision to allow the nuisance of various machinery to exceed these limits has led to loss of sleep, headaches, ear lesions and a general inability to fully enjoy our homes and businesses,” reads the letter from the Piunnos.
Marx wonders if the petition was truly necessary.
“A complaint is a complaint and it’s real for the person who’s making the complaint.” Marx said. “But it felt like they wanted to drive the company out of Lakewood, which is ridiculous. It’s a space that has been in the city for over 100 years.”
NeoGraf did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
An evolving issue for Birdtown residents
Marx believes that she exhausted all of her options trying to appease both Lakewood’s residential and industrial spheres.
“Graftec [Now, NeoGraf] is a great company to have in Lakewood,” said Marx. “Now, I haven’t had any complaints about it for several months, so that’s good — but I do think that when you live by a factory, you have to expect factory noise.”
Despite these efforts from Marx, the noise continues to bother Birdtown residents.
“Our frustration has been a lack of response from the city,” Ralph Piunno said. “We’ve been trying everything, and it just hasn’t been addressed.”
Since Marx recently stepped down from her seat as the Ward 4 Representative, a new representative, Matt Bixenstine, was sworn in on Jan. 20th, 2026.
In a statement from the Ward 4 City Council office, Bixenstine said:
“As the new Ward 4 Councilperson, I am committing myself to getting up-to-speed on this issue. I started this process by hosting an informal meeting with impacted Birdtown residents on Feb. 13. I now need to consult leadership from the City of Lakewood and NeoGraf in a similar manner. I am hopeful we can achieve a long-term solution that’s satisfactory for all parties and helps improve quality of life for Birdtown residents.”
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