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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Ned Shalanski, Licensed Landscape Architect, on Outdoor Dining Program
3:52:01
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129 sec
Ned Shalanski, a licensed landscape architect, presents critical testimony on the outdoor dining program, focusing on roadway dining. He expresses concerns about the program's impact on residents' quality of life and questions the city's ability to oversee thousands of individual restaurant setups.
- Argues that roadway dining leads to constant noise, crowds, and less livable streets for residents
- Criticizes the proposal for year-round roadway dining, suggesting it requires a thorough public Environmental Impact Statement
- Questions the wisdom of allowing restaurants to design and erect structures without professional oversight
- Suggests that if street dining occurs, it should be limited to fully closed streets during special occasions or weekends, with removable setups
Ned Shalanski
3:52:01
Ned, you're unmuted.
3:52:05
Can you hear me?
3:52:09
We can hear you.
3:52:10
Oh, great.
3:52:11
Thank you.
3:52:11
My name is Ned Shalansky, and I'm a licensed landscape architect with sixteen years designing New York City public spaces.
3:52:19
Currently, I design public parks for the New York City Parks Department.
3:52:23
Council members, it's a pleasure to design green spaces within your districts.
3:52:27
I'm also a resident of Lower East Side.
3:52:29
My comments today apply to roadway dining, not sidewalk dining.
3:52:33
The vibrant wording I hear so often connected with roadway dining means for residents constant noise, crowds, and less livable streets.
3:52:41
It is truly vexing to me that I have to defend my neighbors and I from city council green lighting a beer garden outside my window that operates until midnight, That the hospitality line should propose this environmental transformation be made year round is not only out of touch with everyday New Yorkers' quality of life, it demands a thorough public EIS.
3:53:03
No city agency can oversee a program wherein thousands of independent restaurants are permitted to stage individual roadway setups.
3:53:11
DOT's testimony today and even those from the restaurants themselves proves this, that restaurants should be allowed to design and erect substantial structures in the public realm without drawings from architects or engineers.
3:53:23
To quote John McEnroe, you cannot be serious.
3:53:27
Roadway dining is a square peg in a round hole, and deep down, I think we all know this.
3:53:31
It is absolutely infuriating to me to hear from paid lobbyists like the Hospitality Alliance to use social justice buzzwords like equity to describe the handover of public space in my neighborhood for the profiteering of private entities.
3:53:47
If DOT and city council want a successful outdoor dining program, it should follow careful planning, not the enshrining of ad hoc pandemic era rules by industry insiders.
3:53:58
A one size fits all model, again, is a square peg in a round hole.
3:54:03
If at all, street dining should take place on fully closed streets during special occasions and or weekends and with removal