The City Council has passed a package of bills that will help get sidewalk scaffolding sheds down quicker citywide and make those that remain potentially more attractive and safer. All we can say is hallelujah.
These ubiquitous hunter-green sheds are an object lesson in good intentions gone wrong. They were mandated by Local Law 11 in 1998, passed in response to the death of Grace Gold, a Barnard student who was killed by a falling cornice in 1979. The law requires landlords to inspect their building façades every five years and put up green plywood sheds to protect pedestrians below each time they do.
Now, more than 8,500 sheds stand across the city — with an average age of 500 days or about 16 months. More than 300 have been up for more than five years. They might as well be permanent features of the landscape. Installing the sheds can run from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars for building owners. They may obscure the façade of the building, deter retail customers and give the impression that a building is in poor condition.
With the City Council legislation, the sheds will be required less often, stay up for shorter durations and have more appealing designs and brighter lighting.
All agree the sheds have been a scourge, including Mayor Eric Adams who in 2023 named Ya-Ting Liu to the new post of chief public realm officer. One of her first jobs was bringing all parties together for a “Get Sheds Down” campaign. The package of five bills City Council passed on March 26 is the first major change to Local Law 11.
“The sheds had become a band-aid that was easier for building owners to keep on rather than make the underlying building repairs,” she told Crain’s, “but at such a cost to the public.”
Not only are the sheds a blight on the streetscape, but they discourage foot traffic to local businesses. And as Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg wrote in an op-ed in the Daily News last summer, they lead to additional crime. The scaffolding has become the equivalent of a “dark alley,” he wrote.
Reforms will lengthen the time between inspections to every eight years, and some existing buildings could go as long as 12 years between inspections. The 5-year cycle was never based on science but was applied to all — newer buildings as well as pre-war. The city is now going through a study with engineer Thornton Tomasetti to create a scientific standard for building façade inspection cycles. Longer inspection cycles mean fewer sheds.
Permits for new sheds will be issued for three months instead of one year. And new sheds will be required to stand 12 feet tall, from eight feet, and have brighter lighting. The new rules will also allow colors besides hunter green. Sheds could also be metallic gray or white, or a color matching the building they surround. The Buildings Department plans to announce design rules this summer.
New Yorkers should begin to notice a difference in their streets by this time next year. We have a city that is rich in fine, historic architecture. To have covered in it green plywood at the 8-foot mark for decades is a desecration. The mayor, City Council and Buildings Department have done well to have taken on this task and to have pushed it through.
