Wilson asks about scaffolding removal lag and shed reform metrics

On the, another thing that I, so it's kind of a two-part question.

The other things that I hear is once building repairs are done and they're ready to bring down the scaffolding, that there's often like a lag time between

when their paperwork, everything is submitted for final review and the agency giving clearance to bring it down, even though work has been completed.

So I'm curious what...

How long does that usually take if someone has submitted?

And, you know, how long, what's the review period time to bring, to give the clearance to bring the scaffolding down?

And then are there other factors that are contributing to that, like staffing, et cetera?

And then other part is there was a packet of...

Scaffolding legislation and reform that happened in the previous council.

I'm curious if you have any data or metrics to show the effectiveness of that legislation, which was intended to shorten the amount of time that scaffoldings are up.

Answer the first question first.

Depending on the height of the building, so if the building is six stories and less, if the job application for the repairs has been signed off by the owner's registered design professional,

that sidewalk shed can be removed as soon as that sign-off occurs.

And again, that is wholly with the owner's registered design professional.

If that building is within FISP or Local Law 11, so over six stories in height,

our turnaround time for those amended reports, and those amended reports tell us when an unsafe building becomes safe, is two weeks.

That includes an inspection and a thorough review of the plans and the report that has come in.

If the building is 15 stories and up, it's site safety.

It's a major building with regards to facades repair.

So that is a FISP review from the compliance side, but it's also a full inspection of site safety that occurs as well.

But our time frame for that is also within two weeks.

I think speaking to the council legislation, we're continuing to implement new parts of it.

We just had an announcement recently about movement on rules that we're working to continue to effectuate the goals of that.

I would say we were able to announce that approximately 1,200 sheds have been down since January, a decrease of more than 15% in 10 months.

One of the major things I want to highlight is that we have moved from a one-year permit on a shed to 90 days.

The other linkage is that previously a shed renewal permit would come with just the request of moving the shed forward.

We are now linking the responsibility of that shed with an explanation of what the owner is doing to alleviate the problem that brought.

And so there's always going to be a mix of different sheds in New York City.

In fact, it's important that we continue to have pedestrian protection, but we're doing more things to say that this should only be up for as long as it has to be up, and you have to tell us why it's going up.

And are you finding with the 90-day permit that folks are asking for extensions, or is that 90-day period?

sufficient?

I think it's a little bit early in order to make enough of a sample pool to tell you where people are landing with it, but I do think that we still have owners who are

working to get the financial wherewithal to make the repairs or working on availability on labor and contracts with the right contractors to do the work.

And so we're looking at both the outside factors and our own processing time to see how this is impacting the market.

I'll just add one other thing.

As of this morning, and the department has a map of all the sidewalk sheds in the city that totals the numbers.

As of this morning, that number was 6,861.

At the beginning of this year, I believe we were, as the commissioner mentioned, over 8,000.

But again, that is a pretty significant drop in 10 months.

But again, and I was joking a little bit about checking out the sheds in front of 280.

Once the sidewalk sheds...

and the new designs come out and folks start using those new designs, the experience of somebody walking down the block changes significantly.

And that's the real goal here is to change how the interaction between pedestrians and overhead protection in the city is really felt by the public, right?

But one of the recent local laws was to increase the height of the sidewalk shed to allow more light in.

So you'll see that with the new designs.

And specifically in front of 280, we have an angled design that lets light in.

That still does its job, right, making sure that the public is protected.

But that look and feel is very, very different with the new sidewalk shed designs.

And then the last thing that is coming into implementation, I believe, in January next year is the civil penalties that we have associated with leaving sidewalk sheds up for over 180 days.

And that concludes the entire package of local laws.

And those are the big sticks that we have coming down the pipe.

So it's the reduction in permit duration.

It's the reporting every time they renew a permit.

And then if the owner, very specifically the building owner, doesn't make progress towards affecting those repairs, that's when those civil penalties will be in.

Yeah, I'm taking up a lot of time.

So you already gave me some extra time.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay.

Thank you.