Agency Testimony: Outreach, Application Statistics, and Conditional Approvals
First Deputy Commissioner Margaret Forgione details DOT's extensive outreach efforts, application statistics, and the implementation of conditional approvals to allow roadway cafes to operate by the April 1 deadline.
DOT conducted extensive outreach, including 44 webinar presentations with question and answer sessions for restaurants, repeated email communications to every business with a food service establishment permit, and over 15,000 POM cards distributed in person.
We also did extensive engagement with the news media and via social media to raise awareness about the program.
DOT has received nearly 3,900 applications from over 3,200 restaurants, and our goal is to help all of these restaurants participate in the program.
When an application is incomplete or includes errors, our staff doesn't just reject the application, we work with applicants to help them achieve approval.
Our application is also available in 12 languages, a concern that we heard raised today.
To expedite the lengthy application process required by Local Law 121 and other requirements of the city charter, and to allow as many restaurants to be up and running by April 1st as possible, DOT issued conditional approvals to restaurants applying to operate a roadway cafe that had already gone through the DOT review, community board review, and had a public hearing.
Thanks to this effort, the vast majority of restaurants that applied for a roadway cafe by August 3rd deadline were approved to operate.
In addition, all restaurants that applied for a sidewalk cafe prior to the August 3rd deadline have been allowed to operate.
We are thrilled that outdoor dining is now a permanent part of the city's streetscape, and we want to work with the council to make this program as successful as possible.
This includes listening to the concerns of restaurants about how to expand participation and to make the application process faster and easier.
We are just over three weeks into the first dining out NYC season, so I'm sure there will be more lessons learned and additional feedback to consider.
We look forward to discussing lessons from this first season with the council and other stakeholders so that we can work together to make outdoor dining a success for many years to come.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
We now welcome any questions.
Great, thank you very much.
So a number of questions.
I mean, first of all, I I really want to drill down on this number of the 67 businesses with full approval.