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DOT's efforts to streamline the outdoor dining application process
1:44:14
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132 sec
Michelle Craven, Associate Deputy Commissioner for Cityscape and Franchises at DOT, explains the department's efforts to streamline the outdoor dining application process. She details various measures taken to assist restaurants and ensure smooth application processing.
- Each application is assigned a dedicated plan reviewer who works directly with restaurants
- DOT offers Zoom and team sessions, remote calls, and site visits to help with application issues
- The department works to make every application viable and tries to get as many approved as possible
- For roadway applications, DOT expedites the public hearing process to minimize delays
Michelle Craven
1:44:14
So okay.
1:44:22
So one thing I guess from the very beginning, we assign every application to a dedicated plan reviewer.
1:44:29
They work with the restaurants directly to make sure the applications are complete, to make sure that the site plans include what they need to include.
1:44:36
I will point out just because there was a lot of discussion about site plans and the kind of review that needed to happen at the site plans up front.
1:44:44
Some of the site plans we receive are like they don't have any dimensions.
1:44:49
They may have a street name on it.
1:44:51
Like a very, very, very basic.
1:44:53
And I think we found that if we sent those to the community boards, the community boards would be very unhappy with us for sending that little detail about a particular site plan to them.
1:45:02
And so that is why we work with the restaurants very closely upfront to try to get those site plans into compliance and to make sure that the restaurant itself, the outdoor dining setup would be in compliance.
1:45:14
We try to we work to make every application viable to make sure it gets approved.
1:45:20
Anything that we think we can get it approved, we're going try to get it approved.
1:45:24
We offer, as the first deputy commissioner said, we have a lot of Zoom and team sessions with people.
1:45:31
We take remote calls so that we can be online updating the site plans for the restaurants instead of asking them to do it themselves.
1:45:40
We can do it in one fell swoop.
1:45:42
They can take any measurements if they need to.
1:45:43
They'll be at the restaurant.
1:45:45
We take care of that right away.
1:45:46
We can make site visits if we need to.
1:45:48
We have done that.
1:45:50
If there are minor issues with an application that maybe don't affect the site plan or really affect the application that severely, we'll send it to the community board right away rather than hold it up.
1:46:03
For roadway applications I'll say because the community boards get thirty days to look at it and the lead time for a public hearing notice is approximately a month, we will basically start the advertising process for a public hearing as soon as we send it to the community board so we can hold the public hearing right away after the community board's time has run out.
1:46:24
That's a lot of it.
1:46:25
Thank you.
1:46:26
Yeah.