Chair Menin Questions DOT on Sidewalk Clearances and Scaffolding Rules

We've heard from a lot of restaurants that they're recommending that the city allow for greater flexibility for safe sidewalk cafe clearances, and we heard that issue brought up before, as well as DOT scaffolding requirements and getting clarification on that.

Have you taken any of those two issues and would you take them moving forward and clarify them so that we're not putting this onerous burden on the applicant?

So, Chair, are you speaking about our clearance requirements and are we willing to revisit those?

Yes.

Okay.

So what we have done, and you know, things have changed a lot.

Um, you know, I heard the the folks testifying before us talking about how they've had certain clearance requirements dating back to DCWB's program for decades.

The needs of the city are constantly changing.

And as we develop a permanent outdoor dining program, we felt it was very critical to look at what we need now in the city.

Everyone here is aware we have a ton of competing demands for both sidewalk and roadway in the city.

But focusing on sidewalk in particular, sidewalks first and foremost, are to be able to get people safely to move from one place to the other.

So we've developed, and Michelle can talk a little bit more about it, but we have developed some clear path requirements very analytically, looking at land use such as density of the area, height of the buildings, land, you know, land use with hospitals, subway stations, etc., to gauge how much sidewalk space is necessary to safely and comfortably move people.

So that is the basis for our sidewalk clearances, and we've even accommodated those a little bit further and given a little a few more feet in for each of those categories to dining out.

But we feel it's very important to be very measured as we approach the permanent program and give a fair amount of space to pedestrians moving on the sidewalks.

And that's not to say that's not something we won't want to revisit in the future.

And and any other details you want to add?

I'll just add for aside from the pedestrian clear path, which is obviously very important, there are clearance requirements for other elements in the sidewalk, whether they're fire hydrants, subway stairs, bus shelters, whatever else.

A lot of those objects already have certain clearances that have to be maintained for them so that they can be used appropriately.

But we had a series of interagency meetings, I think starting in 2021, to talk through everybody's infrastructure, the needs that are out there, sister agencies, MTA, utility companies to figure out what's sort of the right size for the different clearances.

And we tried to be as flexible as possible for the restaurants to get as many restaurants operating as we could.

Okay.

And the fiscal year 2025 November plan added 176,000 for an additional eight headcount positions to process outdoor dining applications.