Either Mayor de Blasio’s left hand has no idea what his far-left hand is up to — or Hizzoner just isn’t being square with New Yorkers about noise in the city.
On Sunday, his team announced a deal to halve tourist helicopter flights. The same day, The Post reported on the jump in permits for loud overnight construction work.
De Blasio’s Economic Development Corp. says the chopper deal will cut 30,000 Downtown Manhattan Heliport flights a year. No more Sunday flights either, or ones over Governor’s Island.
“The non-stop din of helicopters has been a major quality-of-life issue for New Yorkers,” thundered a mayoral press release. “Today we’re addressing it.”
Yet the city’s doing nothing about another ear-ache: As Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported in Sunday’s Post, the Buildings Department OK’d 59,895 permits last year for work between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. — a 24 percent jump from 2014. It nixed only 431 applications, for an approval rate of 99 percent.
’Copter-noise complaints make up a minuscule share (less than 1 percent) of all noise-related 311 calls. But one resident calls night-time construction work an “indescribable nightmare.”
Machines make it impossible to sleep, and filing complaints “does not work,” says Isabel Madden, who lives near a project at 220 Central Park South.
OK, the construction boom is great news for the city — creating good jobs, new housing and office space. But the now-halved ’copter industry creates good jobs, too.
What’s missing here is balance: How can de Blasio boast of saving New Yorkers’ “quality of life” from chopper noise even as his team OKs 60,000 overnight construction jobs every year?