Mr. Levin, a Democrat, is the lead sponsor of a bill that would create a unit within the Buildings Department dedicated to responding to complaints related to work without permits and to extensive renovations, which the bill defines as work in more than 10 percent of a building. This “real time enforcement unit,” Mr. Levin said, would respond within two hours after a complaint about unpermitted work, which would address the problem of missed violations because inspectors show up after the work has stopped.

Two other bills target the practice of landlords falsely claiming their buildings are unoccupied. The bills call for the Buildings Department to review occupancy claims in certain cases, rather than rely on the word of owners or owners’ agents, as it does now.

A coalition of tenant advocacy groups that lobbied for and helped draft the legislation says construction inside buildings has increased in the past three to five years in rapidly gentrifying areas like Crown Heights in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side of Manhattan. While landlords try to maximize rents by renovating vacant apartments and common areas, some landlords, tenant groups contend, have another motive — to make life miserable for rent-stabilized tenants so their units can be cleared out and rented at higher rates.

“It’s a violent assault on the tenant — to have a ceiling collapse on you or the walls shaking,” said Brandon Kielbasa, director of organizing for the group Cooper Square Committee. “It’s really some of the worst psychologically and physically threatening harassment we see.”

Tenant claims brought to Housing Court for all forms of harassment have increased steadily — to about 800 last year — since a city law allowing tenants to sue their landlords over harassment went into effect in 2008, city officials said.