Chair Brooks-Powers Opening Remarks: Implementation Challenges, Costs, and Accessibility
Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers details the implementation challenges reported by businesses, including onerous online forms, lack of language accessibility, high construction and storage costs, and changed clearance standards.
DOT has struggled to process applications in a timely manner.
As of April 10th, 2025, just 60 restaurants, less than 2% of the applications received by DOT completed the entire outdoor dining application process and received revocable consent to operate a sidewalk or roadway cafe, which equates to less than 2% of the 3,400 applications received by DOT.
According to the New York Times, hundreds of applications were deemed incomplete by DOT.
The most common issue being restaurants' failure to provide adequate information on their site plans.
Although conditional approvals have been granted, this process is still not where it should be.
Businesses have also reported issues with the application process, including having to fill out onerous online forms and a lack of language accessibility.
We have also received complaints about additional costs associated with the program's setup regulations and the required seasonality of the program.
This has impacted the participation of some restaurants because the approved setups are costly, and the associated construction and storage costs make it too expensive and cumbersome to be viable for some businesses.
Finally, many of the rules promulgated by DOT for the locations of sidewalk cafes differ from the pre-pandemic standards.
This has left out some restaurants that previously participated in the outdoor dining program.
At today's hearing, I want to find out what DOT is doing to ensure that the dining out program is effective, safe, and equitable.
In addition, I want to look at how we can make the application process easier for business owners to navigate and to improve upon implementation.
Before we begin, I would like to thank my staff and committee staff for their hard work.
John Basile, senior policy analyst, Kevin Kotowski, Senior Policy Analyst, Mark Chen, Senior Counsel to the Committee, Adrian Drippal, Senior Financial Analyst, Julian Martin, my policy and budget director, and Renee Taylor, my chief of staff.
I will now ask the committee council to swear in the administration.