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Sidewalk sheds and scaffolding that surround buildings sometimes for years on end could finally be dismantled as part of a campaign Mayor Eric Adams unveiled on Monday to allow building owners to use less-invasive measures instead of scaffolding.
“They block the sunlight, keep pedestrians away from businesses and are a magnet for illegal activity,” the mayor said Monday in Chelsea of the “ugly green boxes” that are a fixture on city streets.
He said the sheds can also become a “safe haven for criminal behavior” and that the city’s own rules make it harder to take them down.
“If we’re honest about it, when we did an analysis, we realized that city rules are incentivizing property owners to leave sheds up and put off critical work,” Adams said. “Most sheds stay up for longer than a year, and some have darkened our streets for more than a decade.”
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City data shows there are currently 9,000 permitted construction sheds, spanning nearly 400 miles of city’s streets, that have been up for an average of 500 days.
The sheds are required under the Department of Buildings’ facade and safety program, where any building higher than six stories has to inspect its exterior walls every five years.
If any structural issues are found, the owners are required to install a sidewalk shed to protect people from falling debris.
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Under Adams’ new plan, the Department of Buildings could end up inspecting buildings less frequently without jeopardizing pedestrian safety, officials said.
“We’re going to take a really hard look at the inspection process, the Local Law 11 cycle,” Jimmy Oddo, the city’s building’s commissioner, said Monday.
“We drive the rest of the country, but that’s not to say every five years for every building of every age, of every material, is correct.”
The buildings department will also begin allowing building owners to use safety netting instead of sheds.
City agencies will now be required to look into using safety netting instead of sidewalk sheds during construction on some city-owned buildings.
The city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services will try netting for the first time at the Supreme Court on Sutphin Boulevard in Queens, in place of a sidewalk shed that was erected in April 2017, according to city records.
The buildings department also plans to let building owners install art on sheds and to vary the color of those sheds, instead of requiring them to be hunter green.
And they’ll seek new-look ideas for sidewalk sheds, something Michael Bloomberg did as mayor in 2010 when his administration allowed a design described as “an oversized umbrella” to remain compliant under Local Law 11.
That law sprung out of a law passed by the city after Barnard College student Grace Gold was killed by a piece of loose masonry in 1979.
Despite these rules, there are still deaths resulting from damaged building facades.
In December 2019, Erica Tishman, a 60-year-old architect, was killed after a piece of broken facade fell on her from a Midtown office building; the building owners later faced criminal charges. In 2015, 2-year-old Greta Greene was killed by a piece of falling brick from an Upper West Side building.
More recently, in April, a panel of loose bricks tumbled from the Jackson Houses in The Bronx after inspectors had repeatedly found the building to be poorly maintained. No one was injured by the falling bricks.
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I generally believe in “better safe than sorry” but the length of time some of these sheds stay up does seem ridiculous.
I’m guessing the companies that own these sheds are going to lobby very hard against these plans – they must be making a fortune.
As much as they are an eyesore, on a rainy/snowy day, they are a blessing as a way to stay dry – I always keep a mental list of where there is cover between my home and frequent destinations so that I know the driest way to get home if necessary.
The scaffolding is way over done in New York City. For a moment, I was wondering what city official has invested into scaffolding.
Finally some good news. But they need to solve the root cause of the problem – updating the timing of Local Law 11 to be at least 5 years AFTER the end of a cycle vs. EVERY five years. This will result in a huge drop in amount of scaffolding as well as significantly reduce the financial burden on buildings WITHOUT any reduction of safety.
But definitely a good start.
This is so overdue. Finally someone is looking critically at the blizzard of regs that give people incentives to leave these blights up. Create a sensible system that gets to safety along with the right incentives that acknowledge the evident downsides of these structures and the problem resolves. Peer cities do it, and it is not like landlords there are different than landlords here.
The ones between 110th and 111th on Broadway, and by McDonald’s by 104th have become homeless encampments and drug dens. They need to go.
I don’t even see the one on 104th showing up on the map, and it is indeed a total eyesore. It should be 225 West 104th st. Does this mean it is operating without a permit?
In addition to these steps, perhaps they could also investigate why the buildings have presumably not made the requisite repairs so that the sheds do not stay up for years on end. There is a reason the sheds are up to begin with, so it seems both sides of the inspection and repair process need to be evaluated.
Agreed but one of the reasons that these sheds stay up long after the work has been completed is that the Shed Companies get free storage space. They generally move the Shed materials when the Shed Companies get an order for a new building site where they can move their shed.
But doesn’t the building have to pay rent for the shed? My building did, monthly.
Yes they do, which means the shed company makes more money the longer it’s up.
The repairs are not made because its cheaper to keep the sheds up. Hopefully this will change that math. However, the real estate folks, especially the owners of buildings with rent stabilized units, are pretty happy with the way things are since they can’t pass the costs along to tenants. So expect some opposition. We need to keep the pressure on to get rid of these sheds!
This is a brilliant idea!!!!! Local Law 11 used to be on an 11 year inspection cycle, when it became 6 I have no idea but its clearly to often if buildings are maintained and inspected properly!!! Building owners should also be forced to have work started and completed in a timely fashion or be ENORMOUSLY fined! There is a building on the southwest corner of 94th & Amsterdam thats been under scaffolding for too many years to remember and the outer walls are still opened up in places and nobody has been there to work on it in YEARS!!!!!! I live across the street from this eyesore and it angers me everyday!!!!
Would it be worthwhile to report this via 311?
That shed at 94 and Amsterdam actually collapsed recently. No one was hurt but it shows the absurdity of the law – its causing more danger than its resolving.
Hope they figure this one out. The owner of the historic building at 400 West 57 had scaffolding around the building for well over a decade, with no work being done the entire time.
These sheds need to be removed and local law 11 repealed. They cause blight, kill workers (more workers have been hurt & pedestrians injured by the sheds than by the facades, with one worker death this year at WEA & 72) and cost middle class coop owners millions to put these things up, lease them; and “maintain” them. Also local law 11 is an environmental catastrophe, causing hundreds of heavy diesel trucks to transport these sheds, daily, all over the city. Thank you Mayor Adams for doing something about this. If you’re successful and the sheds come down, I’ll be a big supporter of your second term.
What about the dining sheds?
I agree. It’s about time that these things are removed promptly after the work on the buildings have been completed. In addition to other issues noted, I have seen trees and planting in from of buildings destroyed when these sheds have been up for years.
It’s not the building owners’ fault. The problem lies with the existing law and the corrupt officials in bed with the building inspectors and contractors who are making a fortune off of Local Law 11.
It’s about time. They are on every block, sometimes more than one. The one on the northwest corner of 110th and Broadway has been there for what seems like forever; the whole building is wrapped but I see no active work or progress, and there are a couple of drug addicts camped out with their stuff between 110th and 111th for well over a year.
Eric Adams is just another blowhard incompetent mayor. Can’t wait till he is gone. Bring back Kathryn Garcia-an operations expert and leader!
True but if Adams can get sidewalk sheds removed, he will have done one thing right
We need a number or email to contact somebody when the scaffolding is up for months and no work is being done.
311 is really the best way. Then you can share with the info WITH 311 service request number. Be persistent with reporting – every day/week you see it up with no work being done.
I tried this last year with scaffolding in front of our building. They said that the shed had an up to date license to be there so there was nothing that could be done.
Eyesore on SW corner of 76th & Broadway has been there for more than a decade.
Rats love it.
I saw “nicer” scaffolding with huge white steel columns and no cross hatching supports. The supports were space far apart and it did not give the closed in feeling one gets with the other type of scaffolding. Scaffolding is needed, perhaps better design can ease some of the inconvenience
I walked down Broadway from 96 to the 70th recently .. EVERY SINGLE BLOCK on both sides of the street had at least one building covered in scaffolding. Pathetic .. And it’s been there for years!! ..Looks like a third world!.
I thought they cared about the tourist industry!? Show me any capital city anywhere in the world that looks as ugly as this!! Cheers!
West End Ave has a huge amount of them, too.
I used to live on West End Ave and 78th … They needed to ‘point’ the building (about 20 years ago) .. No problem .. All renters had to pay for ‘MCI’s to get it fixed. …(Not a great deal of money and it was completed in a few months) Why cant this happen today?
None of this addresses the situation with existing sheds. It matters little if new sheds are more attractive or replaced with netting, or if less frequent inspections result in fewer shed IN THE FUTURE.
Where is the plan to force building owners to finish the work and remove the 9,000 sheds we already have? There’s a shed on a CITY building at 104 and Broadway that’s been up for 12 years! They work on the building intermittently, but it’s never done. By the time they finish, it’ll need another inspection and it will start all over again.
Best of my experience, it’s a bit of an urban legend that people are leaving sheds up to avoid doing work. It definitely happens, but most sheds are up for many years because it actually takes that long for permitting, landmarks, finding contractors and actually getting the work done.
There can be long stretches between different stages of work when the shed has to remain up. And the city does not allow you to remove any part of the shed until the entire building has completed its cycle, which is why a building on a corner will have both facades protected by a shed, even if the work is only occurring in one small part of the facade.
My building, owned by Columbia University, had a shed put up about 9 months ago that wrapped around the corner. The work was done on the Broadway side and the shed was removed. Then the work was finished on the street side as scheduled and it was recently taken down. It can be done if the project is well managed.
So why put up sheds etc until the work is allowed to begin. Ha, it’s like putting on your wedding dress a month before the wedding.
The FISP process basically requires the shed to go up while you wait forever to get permits and contractors to actually do the work.
My experience is that the contractor is hired and then the contractor arranges to have the shed put up. But yes, it can take time to get the permits – not that long, again in my experience.
But I don’t have experience with buildings that are approaching the deadline, pay to have the sidewalk bridge put up, and then futz around with finding a contractor and getting a plan of work approved. THAT would, yes, be a time-waster.
Because if the work is due to begin, you will not have to pay a fine if the scaffolding is already up (but work has not yet begun).
Local Law 11 is an over-the-top, money-making scam on NYers. It needs to be reformed.
Glad to see something being done.
Great news. For far too long, the sheds have seemed less like protection for pedestrians than a way for building owners to avoid doing the required facade work. Between them and the restaurant sheds, New York City’s streets, once grand and beautiful, have become ugly, unpleasant, and often difficult for pedestrians to walk down. Give us back the light and the sky and the ability to see the businesses on the street.
HURRAH for the Westsiderag. Great article long over due. Some of the scaffolding on the Upper West Side has been there for years with no workers?!?***
He should also get rid of those restaurant shacks that are clogging the streets.
Well, it’s about time!!!!
This is a feather in Mayor Adams hat!
Finally, I see he’s on the right track.
This is the best news I’ve heard so far about Mayor Adams.
Bravo!!!
The FISP process needs to be completely overhauled in addition to LPC being streamlined to not having a say in basic alterations that are part of this program.
There are countless LL11 projects stalled all over the city for YEARS, due to LPC reps operating in their own power vaccuum, with no oversight over what color, style, and material is to be approved and used on each building.
* In many cases they will insist on custom orders which could take on average 1 year to receive and inflate construction costs unnecessarily for everyone involved.
Time and time again, basic materials like bricks and brick mortar colors that are approved in one cycle are summarily dismissed a year later once a new cycle starts in order for LPC reps to ‘have a say’ on basic repairs. This is on every project and shows what inefficiency our taxpayer money is going to.
This red tape for every type of material causes projects to last on average 3-4 years so by the time you finish one project, the next one that requires a shed starts 1-2 years later.
I understand the major need for LPC reps input for major alterations and new construction projects in districted neighborhoods, however for basic LL11 restoration work, there should be standardized rules and guidelines or an updated guidebook for what materials are automatically approved per building to be used in order to streamline the approval process and get work done quicker.
That’s one major facet of this sidewalk shed issue no one talks about. Although, don’t get me started on access agreements with neighbors.
These scaffoldings are occupying public real estate. The city should impose fines on the construction companies after the reasonable time to fix and inspect the buildings are over. If the fines are not paid, then impound the scaffolding (like unlicensed hot dog carts) with the additional costs charged to those companies. But we need a strong mayor who would go and fight the construction-landlord complex.