By Julie Shapiro
Behind every Downtown street that gets ripped up is the person who issued the permit, and in many cases, that person is Audrey Jackman.
Jackman, permit manager with the city Dept. of Transportation’s Lower Manhattan office for the past six years, works on a team that approves more than 150 permits a day just for the area below Canal St. She weighs each request from developers and utility companies carefully, based on her observations of the affected blocks.
Jackman spoke to Community Board 1 at a meeting last month, describing in a no-nonsense manner how she does her job and what residents can do if they think they see illegal work taking place.
“In Lower Manhattan, we are very, very particular about what’s going on,” Jackman told members of C.B. 1’s Quality of Life Committee. “There’s so much construction. People are upset because I make them wait two to three days to get a permit. But I have to go out there to see what’s going on.”
Jackman (who along with city D.O.T. declined a request for a photo to accompany this article) visits streets slated for construction not just to look at the traffic flow but also to look at what — and who — is nearby.
“Who lives there is more important than how wide the roadway is,” Jackman said. “I wouldn’t want you banging outside my door…. When I come home from work, I want to go to sleep, too.”
Jackman and her colleagues almost never issue permits for overnight work — and Jackman said that many of the utility companies that are doing work overnight are not allowed to do so.
“The majority of permits I issue are weekend days,” Jackman said. “Con Ed hates me because I always put ‘weekend days.’ If there are residents there, I say the heck with it —you have to do it on weekends.”
The weekend hours Jackman allows are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The only time she’ll allow a contractor to start at 8 a.m. is if they are doing something very quiet, like erecting a tent.
Jackman said one way utility contractors circumvent her is by calling their project an emergency. Utility companies who call in an emergency are allowed to work for 48 hours without a standard permit. If they need to continue working past 48 hours, then they need to apply through Jackman’s office. Since it is much easier to get an emergency permit, some contractors say they have an emergency even if they don’t, Jackman said.
The D.O.T. tries to check on some of the emergency projects to make sure they really are emergencies. If they’re not, Jackman said she gets the work stopped immediately and the contractor gets a summons.
“A lot of them characteristically take their sweet time — so we nail them,” Jackman said. “Some utility companies, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
A Con Edison spokesperson said the company would never mischaracterize regular work as emergency work.
Frank Hrubes, Jackman’s boss and director of construction coordination for D.O.T.’s Lower Manhattan office, later said he meets with Con Ed twice a week to discuss projects and recently Con Ed started sending a more informed representative, which makes the meetings more productive.
All non-emergency job sites should display the detailed permit from the D.O.T. The permit contains information about permitted work hours, but it is in a numerical code that might be hard for a layperson to understand. The D.O.T. does not post permit information online.
Jackman’s office requires all contractors with pending projects and contractors who violate the terms of their permit to attend weekly multi-agency coordination meetings.
“People who don’t show up get their permits revoked immediately,” Jackman said.
“Good — we like it!” replied Pat Moore, chairperson of C.B. 1’s Quality of Life Committee. Moore and the other committee members were pleased to hear Jackman’s defense of residents’ right to a quiet night’s sleep.
Residents with concerns about a job site should call 311, making sure to retain the complaint number for future reference. They can also call the D.O.T.’s Lower Manhattan office at 212-839-7250.
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
