NY City Council Approves Reforms to City Sidewalk Shed Laws
By Isabelle Durso March 26, 2025 4:16 pm
reprints
New York City’s sidewalks might look a lot emptier pretty soon.
Members of the New York City Council unanimously voted Wednesday afternoon to approve a package of five bills intended to reduce the number of sidewalk sheds, or protective overhead scaffolding, on the city’s streets and prevent them from staying up too long.
The bills were introduced to alter the city’s Local Law 11, passed in 1998 and officially known as the Facade Safety and Inspection Program (FISP), which requires landlords to inspect the facades of their buildings every five years, according to the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB).
The proposed changes include: shortening the length of permits for sidewalk sheds from one year to three months; lengthening the amount of time between inspections from once every five years to once every eight years; allowing alternate colors for the sheds besides green; raising the heights of the sheds from 8 feet to 12 feet and requiring brighter lighting; and introducing new penalties for failing to comply with the updated changes.
“The dull green scaffolding that towers over miles of our city sidewalks have been a fixture in our streetscape,” City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said Wednesday. “These structures are not just eyesores that cover up buildings, they’re also a blight that impacts our public safety. Today’s legislation reforms are way long overdue.”
The FISP law caused scaffoldings to become a common fixture of the city’s streets, with some remaining up for decades and costing businesses in buildings with sidewalk sheds to lose thousands every month.
There are currently 8,516 active sheds across the city, with an average age of 511 days, according to the DOB.
More than 1,000 of those sidewalk sheds today have been up for more than three years, according to Councilmember Keith Powers, who introduced the bills along with Councilmember Erik Bottcher. Powers represents Manhattan’s East Side and Midtown, while Bottcher represents an area stretching from the West Villages to Hell’s Kitchen.
In remarks just before the vote, Powers said the scaffolding has become a “permanent blight on our landscape” and disrupts small businesses, public safety, tourism, and public and student housing.
“New York is going to shed the sheds once and for all and get rid of the ugly green scaffolding that has become a permanent fixture of New York City streets,” Powers said.
“These sidewalk sheds are important to keeping New Yorkers safe. But more often than not, work slows, repairs drag on, and scaffolding is left for months, and even years, and even decades on our streets,” Powers said. “It means we don’t even get to look at the beautiful city that we live in. … Today we put an end to that.”
Under the new bill, landlords can renew the permits if they can present valid issues delaying repairs, but the DOB will issue fines of up to $6,000 each month for owners with unacceptable excuses, according to Crain’s New York Business.
But major real estate groups in the city, including the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), have claimed the proposed legislation will not allow landlords to escape fines for issues out of their control.
“We commend the bills’ sponsors, City Council and administration for considering the concerns from our industry on this topic and advancing legislation that will spur more user-friendly and creative sidewalk sheds,” Daniel Avery, director of policy at REBNY, said in a statement to Commercial Observer. “There are still issues to work out in the rulemaking process, but we are confident all stakeholders can work together to make these bills fair and effective.”
The bill was also opposed by the Council of New York Cooperatives (CNYC), which represents NYC co-ops and condominiums. The CNYC sent out an alert to members Monday urging them to oppose the bill, saying the 90-day shed limit was “clearly insufficient” for building owners “who have limited leverage and want to complete jobs as quickly as possible.”
However, the bills have support from Mayor Eric Adams, who first outlined the reforms in July 2023 and will have to approve them before they become law.
“These revitalized rules will help the New York City Department of Buildings remove unsightly scaffolding and ensure that sidewalks sheds are safer, more secure, and more visually appealing when they go up for a limited amount of time,” Adams said in a statement. “Above all, they will allow us to reclaim valuable space for the public and let the light back onto our sidewalks.”
Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.
