Construction crews operating on the Front Street improvement project can now work until midnight six days a week.
Members of the Borough Assembly, acting as the Board of Adjustments, voted unanimously March 22 to allow construction to occur from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday.
The Board of Adjustments approval does include stipulations, however, including prohibiting the use of large and noisy chipping machinery past 9 p.m.
In January, McGraw Custom Construction requested a variance to the city’s noise ordinance in order to allow crews to work longer days on the road and utility improvement project on Front Street.
The city ordinance allows crews to operate between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekends.
In its variance application, McGraw requested to work as early as 6 a.m. and as late as midnight Monday through Saturday. That application went before the Borough Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission in early February.
P&Z voted in favor of allowing construction to occur 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays. And, soon after, McGraw Superintendent Mike Ashton filed an appeal, once again asking to work 6 a.m. to midnight six days a week.
Ashton said he doesn’t anticipate crews will actually have to work until midnight, as progress on the project is moving quickly down Front Street, for the most part.
However, Ashton said he would like to have the extra hours in case a crew needs to work past normal hours to pour concrete or progress is stalled, for example, because they have discovered a large amount of rock beneath the road.
“I need in my pocket the tool to complete the job in the time we have to do it in,” Ashton said. “We have a lot of work to do still and I want to make sure we have every means to do that work.”
P&Z Chair John Taylor said P&Z gave construction crews until 9 p.m. to work because of the possible disturbance the work could create for nearby residents.
However, last week, Taylor said he doesn’t oppose crews pouring concrete until midnight, just creating loud noise that late.
“So if they want to finish concrete all night, I would have no problem with that,” he said.
The Board of Adjustments had received two letters from the public regarding McGraw’s request. One letter, from a resident of Front Street, opposed McGraw’s request. The letter stated construction crews do not utilize the time they are already granted by the city, and should not be given extra hours to operate.
The other letter was from residents living on St. Michaels Street, and was in support of the extra construction hours in order to get the project completed as quickly as possible.
Another stipulation included in the Board of Adjustments’ approval last week states that if there are a large number of complaints from the public regarding the work hours on Front Street, the Board will revisit the issue.
Borough Manager Timothy Rooney also asked that construction crews utilize the city workers for inspections during normal business hours. He said the city would take issue if the city Public Work’s Department workers are called out to the project site late at night and the city is forced to pay that overtime.
“We don’t have a concern with unique occurrences, but we would have a huge problem if it became a regular practice,” Rooney said.
Ashton said if it became an issue, or the city received many public complaints about any late construction noise, he wouldn’t mind revisiting the extra work hours.
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