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By Hellen Zaboulani
New York City Mayor Eric Adams wants to see unsightly scaffolding down faster, freeing up sidewalk space.
As reported by Crain’s NY, the mayor’s office is re-writing the city’s rules for sidewalk sheds and is slapping on additional fines in central business districts. The city hopes the new rules will give property owners more incentive to wrap up their constructions and repair work in a more timely manner and dismantle the sheds which need to be put up to protect pedestrians from falling debris. New financial penalties and added oversight will be added, particularly in busy neighborhoods including Midtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City and Grand Concourse. The Adams administration’s priority in setting up the new guidelines is to encourage large developers to dismantle their sheds more speedily in key business regions. “We have nearly 400 miles of scaffolding in New York City, taking up public space that belongs to New Yorkers and the millions who visit our city every year,” Mayor Adams said. “This plan will flip the script so that property owners are incentivized to complete safety work and remove sheds instead of leaving up these eyesores year after year.”
Currently, property owners can continually renew their scaffolding permits. Moving forward, though, owners in the central business districts could be fined $10,000 for sheds that have outlasted their welcome. Fines may apply for sheds if they haven’t filed a repair application within three months, if the work permits haven’t been secured within six months, or if the planned repairs extend beyond two years, Crain’s reported.
The mayor’s office also wants to add legislation to impose new monthly fines on building owners with sheds on public sidewalks that are unrelated to new construction or demolition work. Per Crain’s, these penalties would start 90 days after the shed gets its permit and would include penalties of up to $6,000 per month. Many of the city’s sheds go up to comply with Local Law 11, which requires owners of properties taller than 6 stories to have their walls inspected every five years and file a report with the Department of Buildings. If the building is deemed unsafe, a shed must be put up by the owner to keep pedestrians safe. Rather than immediately taking on the repairs, however, many times, the building owners repeatedly file for shed permit extensions and avoid penalties by keeping the sheds up instead of making the necessary repairs. Under the new laws, the DOB will cut the standard length of shed permits from a year to 90 days and stop granting penalty waivers for sheds whose permits are expired. Properties with scaffolding that has been up for longer than three years will also be added to the DOB’s long-standing shed program, under which they will be watched more closely. “Sidewalk sheds are an important public safety tool to protect New Yorkers from hazardous conditions,” said DOB Commissioner Jimmy Oddo, “but they are no substitute for proper building maintenance.”
Also, the city wants to replace sidewalk sheds with less unattractive alternatives, which are still safe. This includes safety netting which is already allowed in the city, and for which the mayor’s office will roll out regulation highlighting its expansive uses. In hopes of finding other safe and affordable designs to use in lieu of scaffolding, the DOB will also issue a request for proposals by the end of the summer for new sidewalk shed designs that are less intrusive.
The Adam’s administration said that currently there are 9,000 active and permitted construction sheds in the city that have been up for nearly500 days on average
