Mayor Adams mounts effort to take down NYC scaffolding

Mayor Eric Adams announced a crackdown Monday on the nearly 400 miles of scaffolding around the city, saying the eyesores were a blight on public space.

There are currently 9,000 active permits for scaffolding, also known as sidewalk sheds, in the city. They stay in place an average of nearly 500 days and occupy three percent of city sidewalks, according to a press release.

“Imagine visiting Rome, Tokyo or Rio and seeing scaffolding everywhere. New Yorkers wouldn’t be happy with these unsightly constructions in other cities, and we shouldn’t be O.K. with them here at home,” Adams said. “For too long, bureaucratic rules have stood in the way of progress.”

The Department of Building is overhauling its rules to get rid of the scaffolding. Adams will also seek to pass City Council legislation slashing permits from one year to 90 days. Landlords who keep the eyesores up longer than permitted will face maximum fines up to $6,000, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said. Under the current rules, many building owners can indefinitely delay repairs and keep sheds up for years without facing any fines.

“For years, our sidewalk shed policy made it easy for property owners to leave their sheds up forever, push off repairs indefinitely and ignore the impacts of inaction,” Joshi said. “They’ve stolen our public space, because it made more financial sense to leave the sheds up than to fix the facade.”

The agency will also encourage use of safety netting as an alternative to sidewalk sheds. The first netting will go up at the Queens Supreme Court building, where scaffolding has been in place since 2017.

Buildings department inspectors will initially focus on property owners in “pedestrian hotspots,” and business districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, according to a release.

Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association that represents landlords, said property owners also hate scaffolding.

He said some scaffolding remains in place for long periods because of "delays in approvals from the Department of Buildings, coupled with the limited number of engineers and contractors doing facade work."

"Maybe it’s time to review the frequency of inspections, especially for facades that do not face areas where the public is allowed. We’re encouraged by Mayor Adams’ focus on this problem, but caution that building owners are already at their breaking point and cannot face ruinous fines in an economic situation created by increasingly restrictive state laws," he said in a statement.

Last year, Gothamist reported on scaffolding that was removed from a West Village building after 22 years.