Maybe it’s the city that never sleeps because construction noise won’t let anyone rest.
The city approved 99 percent of all applications for after-hours construction work last year, a cash cow that generated $25.3 million in application fees in the last fiscal year, 20 percent more than the $21.1 million the city took in the year before.
The Buildings Department issued an astonishing 59,895 variances last year — rejecting only 431 applications, and revoking only 142 permits, The Post has learned.
The number of rubber-stamped permits surged 24 percent from 2014, when the city issued 48,262.
The permits allow work after 6 p.m. and before 7 a.m. on weekdays, and are necessary for construction at any hour on the weekend.
The city has allowed around-the-clock work at most of the mega towers now dotting the skyline, including Extell’s Central Park Tower on West 57th Street; a 1,428-foot residential and retail project by the JDS Development Group on West 57th Street; and a 90-story skyscraper at 30 Hudson Yards.
The lax policy comes even as the Buildings Department logged 3,773 construction-noise complaints last year. It issued only 54 violations.
Some lawmakers are now demanding the city stop rubber-stamping permits and create a “construction liaison” to manage complaints on construction noise and traffic.
“The system is out of whack because the permits are so routinely granted,” said City Councilman Daniel Garodnick. “It has become more like an entitlement for builders.”
One neighbor called the racket an “indescribable nightmare.”
‘I sleep with the air conditioner blasting even though it’s 30 degrees outside’
- Linda Gerstman, Financial District resident
“Some very noisy machines are permitted to run from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., interfering with our sleep,” said Isabel Madden, whose bedroom window faces a Vornado project at 220 Central Park South. “Filing complaints with 311 does not work. It simply does not address the problem in a timely manner.”
Work on the 65-story Vornado residential tower began in 2012 and public records show the city has issued after-hours permits there almost continuously for the last two years.
In the Financial District, Linda Gerstman hears “noises that are almost like explosions” from pipes dropping into garbage bins. Overnight construction is taking place at 1 Wall St., where an office tower is being converted into apartments.
“I sleep with the air conditioner blasting even though it’s 30 degrees outside,” Gerstman said.
The DOB is supposed to approve such variances only when construction is being done at schools; for high-risk work adjacent to public spaces; when work would impede traffic or pedestrians; and for projects “where expediency benefits the public.”
The permits are granted for up to 14 days at a time, at a cost of $500, plus $80 for each day of work. The revenue goes into the city’s general fund.
“After-hours variances are granted primarily when it’s safer or less disruptive to a neighborhood to perform the work at night or on weekends,” a Buildings spokesman said.
The Five Star Carting Co. applied this month for an after-hours permit at 462 Broadway in Soho to remove interior partitions, doors and ceilings. The application says it is for “construction activities with minimal noise impact.”
The DOB approved a permit for nearly around-the-clock work from Jan. 22 to Feb. 4.
Last week, the DOB received a complaint that the noise was “waking neighbors” in the middle of the night with a request that the agency “kindly revoke” the permits ASAP. The DOB’s site does not indicate what, if any, action was taken.