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Council Member Keith Powers introduces legislation to reform sidewalk shed regulations
0:25:04
ยท
3 min
Council Member Keith Powers presents a package of bills aimed at reforming New York City's sidewalk shed regulations. He highlights the problems with long-standing scaffolding and introduces measures to improve design standards, accelerate removal timelines, and modify inspection requirements.
- The legislation aims to update design standards, including brighter lighting, new colors, and increased height for sidewalk sheds.
- It introduces accelerated timelines for removal of scaffolding to prevent long-term installations.
- The bills propose a more nuanced approach to facade inspections, moving away from the current one-size-fits-all five-year inspection cycle.
Keith Powers
0:25:04
Thank you, and good afternoon to everyone.
0:25:06
I am excited to, say what we all know to be now true, that New York is going to shed the sheds once and for all and get rid of the ugly green scaffolding that has become a permanent fixture of New York City streets.
0:25:20
You can definitely applaud for that.
0:25:22
You're not supposed to applaud him.
0:25:24
We'll applaud.
0:25:26
We know as New Yorkers that these sidewalk sheds are important to keeping New Yorkers safe when construction's going on or facade inspections are going on.
0:25:36
But off more often than not, work slows, repairs drag on, and scaffolding is left for months or even years and even decades on our streets.
0:25:44
Over 1,000 sidewalk sheds today have been up over three years, each one becoming a seemingly permanent blight on our landscape and a permanent fixture inside the neighborhoods.
0:25:54
What does that really mean for New Yorkers?
0:25:56
That means a small business that's buried under the scaffold that no longer can be visible to the foot traffic on the street.
0:26:02
People walking through those alleyways that are dark and dimly lit, that become a public safety hazard.
0:26:07
For property owners, people have to put them up.
0:26:10
They're costly, and they seem to never end.
0:26:12
People in our public housing or campus, types of housing, it means you it's our entire neighborhoods are covered in scaffolding, meaning they're unsafe.
0:26:20
And for New Yorkers, it means we don't even get to look at the beautiful city that we live in.
0:26:25
For people that are visiting, they don't get to enjoy the beautiful skylines and the architecture of New York City.
0:26:29
Today, we put an end to that.
0:26:31
We're doing a package of bills alongside my friend, council member Eric Botcher, that would reform this process to number one, update the design standards to put bright lighting under them, to allow for new colors, not just the ugly green, and to allow for higher heights so we don't have to feel so claustrophobic when we're underneath them.
0:26:49
Where when they go up, we wanna make sure they get down.
0:26:52
So we're finally accelerating the timeline for when they go up and making sure that people that put them up are actually doing the work so they don't stay up for decades.
0:26:59
And for folks who are, facing the burden every five years of having to do the inspections of the work, we're now gonna do a more nuanced approach, not the one size fits all approach that has long, plagued our city and to give new buildings, give buildings of different types, different timeline than just the five years.
0:27:18
I wanna acknowledge a whole host of people that are here with us today, but I do wanna acknowledge that the local law 11 and the predecessor to it, local law 10, originate from an accident that happened of a young New Yorker named Grace Gold, a student at Barnard, who in 1979 was hit and tragically lost her life as a result of a facade that was in need of repair.
0:27:41
We are joined here today by her sister who joined us in these efforts to make sure we can maintain the safety while also modernizing those laws, and she's here with us today.
0:27:51
I wanna welcome her and thank her for her partnership.
0:27:54
And, of course, thank, our member Council
Amanda Farias
0:27:56
member, your time has expired.
Keith Powers
0:27:58
I just wanna acknowledge the staff who worked on this, and I will be done.
0:28:01
I wanna just acknowledge, Brad Reed and Austin Malone and Audrey Sun, my staff, Haley, Ben, and Emma, who all worked on this, and I encourage you all to vote aye.
0:28:10
Thanks so much.