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One local politician wants the city to take over façade work when building owners drag their feet and leave scaffolding up for years on end.
Council member Keith Powers is renewing his push to overhaul the city’s “archaic” scaffolding laws — following a Post report on the city’s worst stretch for sidewalk sheds on the Upper West Side and a poll that showed New Yorkers are ready for a change.
“New York City is groaning under the weight of unnecessary scaffolding, and no borough needs reform more badly than Manhattan,” Powers said. “The archaic city rules around scaffolding have allowed them to run rampant, and New Yorkers agree — it’s time to make a change. Let’s get sheds down and let the light in.”
Powers’ position is backed up by a recent poll of registered Democrats by communications group Tusk Strategies that found 71% felt the city’s 45-year-old scaffolding laws were in desperate need of an overhaul.
Some 77% of those polled also felt scaffolding negatively affected their everyday lives — saying they believe sheds drive up costs for homeowners and renters, tank retail business revenue, enable crime and drug use, and make the streets less safe overall.
The city’s scaffolding laws aim to keep New Yorkers safe from debris falling from decaying buildings by requiring façade inspections every five years, and requiring protective sheds if any faults are detected.
Only 21% of respondents found that the risk of falling debris justified the ubiquitous scaffolding sheds — which stretch across hundreds of miles of city blocks.
Some 68% of New Yorkers who responded also think sidewalk sheds are so commonplace because of the political power and influence of players in the scaffolding business.
The poll comes after The Post reported on a sunlight-deprived 35-block stretch of West End Avenue that had been covered by 57 sheds in April.
Since The Post first exposed the Upper West Side stretch in April, 19 sheds have come down — but five more have gone up and only three blocks now have no scaffolding on either side, leaving Upper West Siders lamenting an endless “game of whack-a-mole.”
Powers characterized the situation on West End Avenue as emblematic of the city’s scaffolding problem, calling it “a damning indictment of the archaic rules around removal of sheds in our city.”
“It is ridiculous that residents have had to live with the shadow of sheds for so long, and they can’t get away from it,” he told The Post. “My legislation makes it easier to remove sheds just like these.”
Other legislation he has proposed would add three years to the current five-year inspection cycle for new builds, and require the Department of Buildings to coordinate façade inspections by blocks so repairs are more likely to be done and finished at the same time.
He also wants to overhaul the design requirements of scaffolding by raising the minimum height to 12 feet — and even doing away with it where possible by using other protective methods like façade netting.
Powers’ move follows an administration initiative launched by Mayor Adams in 2023 — “Get Sheds Down” — to rid the city streets of scaffolding.
Hizzoner has proposed cutting permit lifespans from 12 months to 90 days, and charging landlords $10,000 fines for violations.
But those reforms, and Powers’, can only move forward if the City Council votes them through.
Until then, the “whack-a-mole” continues.
“They’re always taking them down, putting new ones up,” Upper West Side dog walker Tina Gutierrez, 34, told The Post. “I almost feel like by the time they finish, the façade already needs a redo because it took so long.”
“I don’t know why it takes them years to get it done.”
