Despite laws that allow construction noise waivers only in emergencies and to avoid risks to life and property, records reveal that for years city officials have been rubberstamping applications, even for routine job-site operations.
Since October 2023, City of Miami officials have approved every request submitted – more than 1,100 citywide – to exceed the 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. restriction for job-site construction noise permitted under city law.
Coconut Grove, Brickell, downtown and other coastal neighborhoods within District 2 accounted for the bulk of those requests – 452 applications, or 40 percent of the total.
Of the 1,135 requests submitted, none were denied, though two were later revoked.
City records also reveal that officials routinely granted the so-called “construction noise waivers” to accommodate routine job-site operations – a violation of city rules that limit such waivers to a “condition which endangers life or property.”
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The records, which detail every construction noise waiver application over the past two fiscal years, were obtained by the Spotlight through a public records request. City officials declined to comment.
The city’s policies and practices for regulating construction noise have been under scrutiny since an effort in April to revise the city’s procedures for requesting permission to exceed the city’s 10-hour-per-day noise limit.
A proposed amendment to the code – sponsored by Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo – was abruptly withdrawn ahead of a scheduled commission vote after fierce public opposition to a provision in the new law that would have allowed construction to start one hour earlier and end one hour later than currently permitted.
A Pardo spokesperson says the ordinance is undergoing revisions and could be back on the commission agenda this fall.
While the proposal would have required waiver applicants to submit a noise mitigation plan and maintain detailed progress reports of after-hours work, critics argue it failed to address the existing law’s core weakness: vague approval standards and the broad discretion granted to the city manager – or his designee – to approve requests.
“Right now, the city doesn’t seem capable of just saying ‘no,’” says Irwin Halpern, president of the Grove Hill Tower Condo Association in Center Grove, who battled with city officials in the early days of construction of the 21-story Mr. C Residences over what he describes as an endless reapproval of noise waivers.
Indeed, city records reveal that in the nine months leading up to the project’s June 2024 completion date (earlier records were not reviewed), city noise waivers for Mr. C Residences were in effect for all but 19 days. Throughout much of that period, crews were authorized to work overnight shifts that generally ended at 5:00 a.m.
A spokesperson for Coconut Grove-based Terra Group, the project’s developer, declined to comment on the waivers.
Halperin says such waiver renewals were common since the project’s groundbreaking in July 2021.
“How does the earlier construction start time and extended construction end time granted in the Waiver reduce ‘any dangerous or hazardous condition which endangers life or property’,” Halperin wrote, without response, to Miami City Manager Art Noriega months after work commenced. “Exactly what conditions currently exist that endangers life or property, and how does the Construction Noise Waiver ameliorate the situation?”
A similar pattern of waiver renewals occurred during the recent $24 million makeover of the Mayfair in the Grove office and retail complex in Center Grove. Between September 2023 and the project’s March 2025 completion – a stretch of 536 days – city officials approved extended work hours for all but 11 days.
And despite restrictions in the law that allow city officials to authorize construction noise waivers only to mitigate hazardous or life-threatening conditions, records show that Mayfair in the Grove’s waiver applications cited such routine activities as “various construction work,” “regular construction work,” “tile removal,” and “construction debris haul.”
Reached by email, Whalou Properties CEO Maria F. Vieira – whose firm owns Mayfair in the Grove – declined to comment.
Pardo, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has repeatedly said his efforts to revise the existing construction noise ordinance stem from resident concerns throughout the sprawling District 2, where much of the city’s construction boom is centered.
“This initiative puts noise waivers under a magnifying glass, ensuring that activities requiring them meet higher standards of transparency and accountability,” Pardo posted on Instagram in April. “It’s about identifying bad actors early, protecting our neighborhoods, and making sure our communities remain places where people can live and thrive in peace.”
But some community leaders describe Pardo’s proposed changes to the construction noise ordinance as misguided. The current law is adequate, they argue; what’s lacking is proper administrative review – including stricter approval standards — and meaningful oversight to prevent abuse.
“The developers, the contractors, they’ve figured it out – you say something’s an emergency and the city just approves it,” complains Ernesto Cuesta, president of the Brickell Neighborhood Association.
Cuesta says the vast majority of after-hours noise complaints he receives from residents arise from routine construction activities that could be safely – but often more expensively – scheduled during daytime hours. In some cases, he explains, crews are engaged in work outside the scope of their waiver; in others, he believes, the waivers were needlessly granted.
While the City Manager’s office has the authority to grant the waivers, the responsibility for policing abuse falls on the Department of Code Compliance, which downplays the extent of the problem.
Trelana Haines, the department’s interim director, declined an interview request but a code enforcement field supervisor authorized by the city’s communications staff to speak with a Spotlight reporter insists that fewer than 20 after-hours construction noise complaints are reported annually in District 2. The last complaint he recalls from Coconut Grove dates back to 2020.
(The city denied a request for a list of all after-hours noise complaints from the past two fiscal years, claiming no such records are maintained.)
Downtown Neighborhood Alliance president James Torres, who was among a group of civic leaders working with Pardo’s staff earlier this year to address noise waiver abuse, questions those estimates. “This is a huge issue,” he says.
This story was originally published in the Coconut Grove Spotlight, a WLRN News partner.
