Brigid Bergen: The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian Lehrer today. Here's a riddle. When does "what goes up must come down," not seem to apply? The answer, sidewalk sheds.

We might like them when it's raining and know they're there to protect us from things heavier than falling drops of water, but sidewalk sheds, the scaffolding building owners have to put in place during facade inspections and repairs sometimes stick around for years. Late last year, Mayor Adams attended the removal of one on a Harlem building that had been there for, wait for it, 21 years. That building scaffolding could get a drink.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine recently put out a report of the current 10 oldest sheds in his borough, starting with one dating from 2009. He joins us now to talk about what steps- what keeps them up so long, and his plan to "shed the sheds" and expedite their removal. Welcome back, Borough President Mark Levine.

[silence]

Borough President Mark Levine: Yes, I'm here.

Brigid Bergen: Hey, Borough President, welcome back to the show.

Borough President Mark Levine: Thank you, Brigid. Great to be here.

Brigid Bergen: Let's start with Local Law 11, the law says buildings have to be inspected every five years, and that's why the sheds go up. How is it supposed to work?

Borough President Mark Levine: Let me just say big picture that we now have 4,000 sidewalk sheds on the street in Manhattan, and there are extreme cases like those you've cited, but they're not isolated. There are over 200 sheds that have been up for five years or more. This is an example of a well-intentioned program that has really run amuck. Look, Local Law 11, which absolutely is necessary to protect pedestrians, does need updating half a century on. It's a one-size-fits-all policy where it treats a brand new building with a steel and glass facade the same way it would treat a 100-year-old building with a terracotta facade.

This is just one of the components of our plan that would first make sure that scaffolding only goes up when necessary; that when it does go up, that it's not so ugly and obstructive, and most importantly, that repair work is done quickly on facades so these don't drag on for years and years.

Brigid Bergen: Borough President, I'm going to guess that money, or lack of it explains why some sheds stay up so long, but what's going on with the building at the top of your list, 5 21st Avenue?

Borough President Mark Levine: I believe this is the City's medical examiner office. It's a city-owned building, ironically. Very frustrating. This has been on the street for more than 14 years.

I have not been able to get to the bottom of why that shed is still up. I think it might be just a classic example of bureaucratic barriers, but we're seeing this all over the City. It's bad for public safety. It is a drag on business. If you have a coffee shop under a shed, it's going to be bad for drawing in customers. It is just plain ugly. I think a lot of New Yorkers feel like it's an example of dysfunction and it's why we got to fix it.

Brigid Bergen: Listeners, if you have a question for Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine about sidewalk sheds or you're involved in getting them put up or taken down, give us a call. The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can also text us at that same number. Again, it's 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Borough President, it can be nice having a little shelter from the rain, but otherwise, as you said, these sheds can be really dark, dreary, sometimes downright scary. For retail shops and restaurants, they're already having a hard enough time, let alone not being able to be seen from the street. Are those some of the main reasons you want to get them taken down?

Borough President Mark Levine: Yes. I think you hit it. Look, it is aesthetic, they're ugly. The current design criteria almost build that in because you've noticed they all are roughly the same color and the same height. That's all stipulated right now.

It doesn't have to be that way. When scaffolding goes up, it could be higher, it could have fewer pillars, it could be lighter colors. In fact, you could even use cantilevers, which don't touch the ground. As long as you're keeping pedestrians safe. I fully support design flexibility. This is one of the things we're calling for.

Brigid Bergen: When you see a shed that's been up since like 2009, for example, do they still get inspected?

Borough President Mark Levine: You mean, does the facade still get inspected?

Brigid Bergen: I think the shed itself is what I'm wondering about.

Borough President Mark Levine: Sure, sure. The Buildings Department has very limited resources for this. They have ramped up an effort to find landlords who are just negligent in not taking down facades, or negligent in not doing the underlying repairs.

It's important to point out that there's some buildings where the landlord is just- they don't want to spend the money on fixing the facade. It can be millions of dollars. They'd rather just rent the shed for much less money. Those buildings should be fined.

There are also buildings, Brigid, where- including this one in Harlem that the mayor highlighted- where they're low-income cooperatives and the buildings want to prepare their facade. They just don't have resources.

We have proposed creating a zero-interest loan fund for those cases so that the building can get money to repair the facade and take the shed down. It's a win-win. We really propose a mix of both sticks and carrots.

Brigid Bergen: It sounds like the mix is part of what is probably going to address the solution. I was surprised to see that so many buildings on your list are not necessarily small landlords. Hunter College owns one of the buildings on your list and one is owned by the City. What do you think is going on there?

Borough President Mark Levine: This building that Hunter owns, it's actually not near their main campus. It's on the west side, I think West 40th Street. Actually, the public buildings are worse offenders on average than the privately-owned buildings. I think it's often because the City doesn't have the money to do the repair work of the facades. That's no excuse. We got to maintain our buildings. We got to set an example for the privately-owned landlords as well.

Brigid Bergen: I want to go to one of our callers. Let's go to Alan in Brooklyn. Alan, thanks for calling WNYC.

Alan: Yes, good morning. Mine is a compound point both about the street sheds and also about construction that's left abandoned halfway through the project. When you have a not-for-profit, like a private school or synagogue that has the money to begin building, and they get to the second floor of what's going to be a four-story building and they run out of funds, they don't have the incentive of owing taxes to the City to complete the property quickly in order to avoid wasting tax money.

In this case, we've had a property that was left incomplete in the middle of a residential neighborhood over 20 years about half of that time with a street shed sitting around it making it look like a derelict. I'm wondering if there is not already a policy like this, some extent of that could be created for a not-for-profit to ensure they have the funds to complete their work as part of the condition for their sorting.

Borough President Mark Levine: Look, I don't actually know the specific property you're referring to in Brooklyn, but in general, I think that in extreme cases, the City should be empowered to go in and do the work and build a property owner. Now, that can be done for emergency safety considerations in buildings right now. It is done sometimes.

In the case of a not-for-profit owner, it may be the City at fault for not providing them adequate funding. I want to be sensitive to their needs. As a general matter, we underfund nonprofits in this city. The City should be empowered to do the right thing to get the repairs done quickly, get the shed done quickly, and stick the property owner with the Bill.

Brigid Bergen: Borough President, I'm getting a bunch of text messages in too. One listener writes, "If facades need to be inspected every five years, what's the incentive in taking down these sheds? New York City is no longer the Big Apple. It's now a scaffolding city." Any reaction to that, this idea that the timeline itself is part of what keeps these sheds up because these buildings need to be inspected so often?

Borough President Mark Levine: Yes. I referred to needed changes in Local Law 11. I want to point out that a lot of this is going to require legislation in the City Council. There are some really great champions in the body, including Keith Powers, who are pushing legislation on this.

Local Law 11 right now applies in the same way to a brand-new building as it does to a very old building. It applies the same way to a building that just did a major facade repair to one that has neglected their facade. Five years might sound like a long time, but by the time you detect a problem and get permits to do the repair and get the repair work done, it might almost be five years again. That's why I think in cases where there is a major facade repair done, there should be some more flexibility. By the way, even the way we do inspections could and should be updated. Other cities now allow drones to do inspections, and that helps for a couple of reasons. It can catch problems very, very early so they don't escalate into the need for major repairs. Also, architects [inaudible 00:10:20] because you get a video [inaudible 00:10:23].

Brigid Bergin: Ithink the borough president [unintelligible 00:10:28] having a little technical difficulty with your line. I want to go to Terry on the Upper West Side who has another concern about a shed at a NYCHA building. Terry, welcome to WNYC.

Terry: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Hello, good morning, Borough President. I have actually reached out to your office about this in the past and have not had that much success. We're in a senior building, one of NYCHA's senior buildings on the Upper West Side, 91st Street. It's a relatively new building, so it's not like one of these old buildings that have been there for 60, 70 years, but the shed has been up for five years.

While that may not sound long compared to some of the sheds that are up in NYCHA buildings that are even longer, the real problem is that this is a senior building. It has blocked off our garden, the backyard. We have a beautiful garden in the back, a lush vegetation, table, and chairs. It's the only outdoor space that is available to the residents. There's no other outdoor space.

For five years, you have seniors, many of them who are disabled or who have caretakers, they can't go to Central Park or even to some of the community gardens. Some of them have early dementia. Some of them need caretakers. This is the only garden, the only outdoor space. For five years, they've had no place to go and get some fresh air, no place to sit out in the back and socialize. We already know the problems with cognitive decline, with isolation, and that sort of thing. I reached out [crosstalk]--

Brigid Bergin: Terry, I want to jump in here because I want to give the borough president a chance to respond to you. Borough President, in case you missed the very beginning of Terry's comments, she's a resident at a senior building on the Upper West Side in a NYCHA complex where there has been a facade up for five years and it's limiting access to this very important outdoor space. She is looking for your help, so I'll turn it over to you.

Borough President Mark Levine: Thank you. Terry, I actually missed the specific location of the building, but if you'd like to let me know or let the producers know, we'll call NYCHA for you. NYCHA has been one of the worst offenders, and some of the rules are quite bizarre. You might've seen a large campus where a pathway winding between buildings but not anywhere near a facade is covered. It just makes no sense. There's got to be more rationality in the rules.

NYCHA also needs funding. In some cases, these facade repairs are extremely expensive. This is part of the broader problem that we've been neglecting the finances of public housing. This is a national problem. Terry, if you let us know which building it is, I'll call NYCHA and we'll push to get that resolved as soon as we can.

Brigid Bergin: Terry, one of our producers is going to take your information off the air to share it with the borough president. This is WNYC FM HD in AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5, Sussex WNJY 89.3, Net Kong, and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. This is New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and live streaming at wnyc.org. Borough President, I want to give you a chance to respond to another caller, not a Manhattan caller, but we're going to go to Beatrice in Brooklyn. Beatrice, thanks for calling WNYC.

Beatrice: Thank you. I live around the corner from a building that burned down and has been surrounded by scaffolding ever since. I don't understand why the City doesn't foreclose on these buildings. They're obviously not paying their taxes, or change the law so that if you leave your scaffolding up on an abandoned or nonpopulated- because no one's in the building obviously, it doesn't even have a roof so it's not a question of evicting anybody.

The building should be sold by the City under one of its [unintelligible 00:14:25] proceedings with a requirement that a suitable building be built for a proper purpose consistent with the block, in this case it's a store, and require be very proactive. You can't leave the scaffolding up and force a sale to a buyer who's responsible, and they sell all the other-- Residential homes on my block get taken and run all the time. I don't know why this is an exception to that.

Brigid Bergin: Beatrice, thanks so much for your question and raising the issue. It's a good segue for you, Borough President, to respond to the issues Beatrice raises, and then tell us a little bit more in what you've included in your Shed the Sheds plan.

Borough President Mark Levine: Sure. Again, I don't know this specific location. It's possible they are paying taxes. It's not uncommon for abandoned properties to still have up-to-date taxes depending on the calculus of the owner. Remember that their sheds are in place to protect pedestrians. Even if the building is abandoned, you might still need to protect people walking by. This is a form of owner negligence and there certainly should be fines. Perhaps, the escalating fines that we have proposed would be enough to incentivize the owner of this property to repair the building or even to even rebuild it.

I'll mention a few other of the components of, Brigid, in our policy. Landmark buildings are some of the biggest challenges because, obviously, they're older and so they're more likely to have repair needs on the facades. They have to go through an extra level of approval process. They have to get approved by the Landmark Preservation Commission, and that can add months to the process. It could add six months to the process.

Brigid Bergin: Wow.

Borough President Mark Levine: We've called for the creation of a dedicated unit of staff inside Landmarks Preservation Commission that would just do nothing but quickly approve of renovation of facades in historic districts. Another challenge is disputes between neighbors. A lot of times, and you're going to notice this once I mention it, the facades have to stretch beyond the property line of the building that has the dangerous facade because you have to keep people safe a little bit beyond the property line, but then you enter into disputes with neighbors and that also can tie up the process of the facade repair.

We've called for the creation of a dispute resolution mechanism in such cases. There's so many reasons why these repairs were being delayed. We just haven't really updated the system for decades. I think we have a chance now, we have a political will now to finally modernize the system and get so many of these shuts down.

Brigid Bergin: Borough President, can you make any of these changes yourself? What do you need to put your plan into action?

Borough President Mark Levine: Many are going to need City Council legislation. There were great bills introduced last term, but we're in a new term now as of January, so all this legislation has to be reintroduced. We hope that they can move that process quickly, move quickly to a hearing because I do consider this a pressing matter. There are also measures that the mayor and the administration can take on their own. To their credit, they have pushed, for example, more aggressive enforcement and fines for negligent landlords. For example, they are pushing landlords to use more open designs in the scaffolding, like using netting instead of plywood.

There are other measures that we're pushing that the administration could take that they haven't yet, like just better staffing Landmarks Preservation Commission. It's really a multi-front effort. I think we have more than a dozen proposals. It's great to have the public involved in this because some of these are going to be heavy lifts and we want policymakers hearing from constituents that they want this fixed

Brigid Bergin: Borough President, I need to tell you you have certainly struck a chord with our listeners. We have a board full of callers who have different stories about the building sheds up around their building. We're going to get one more in, Joan in Manhattan since this is the Manhattan Borough President. Welcome to WNYC. What's your experience with these sidewalk sheds?

Joan: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I live on the Upper West Side 89th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, and this scaffolding has been up for seven years. Not one NYCHA's work has been done. It's quite ugly. What my concern is, it provides a place for people all over the neighborhood who don't even live on the street to come and smoke pot and smoke cigarettes. There are times I can't even open my window. It's so bad.

This is a private landlord. I was told that these landlords put up these scaffoldings because they don't want to spend the money to fix their roof. That's what's going on. I've complained many times, but nobody's done anything.

Borough President Mark Levine: Well, Joan, this is very disturbing to hear and all too common. This landlord, if it's true that they're just refusing to make the repairs because they don't want to spend the money, they should be fined. There should be escalating fines for people who don't comply. The conditions you describe are also not uncommon. I think this is a public safety concern. It's also an economic development matter, and it's just ugly. For all those reasons, we need to get the sheds down as soon as we can. We need to get the repair work done quickly. We can do this while protecting pedestrians. We just need to modernize the system of rules around this.

Brigid Bergin: Borough President, before I let you go, I'm curious if as a former City Council member, what you're thinking about the Council's override of two of mayor Adam's vetoes this week. I'm wondering if you think it could have been avoided with more negotiation.

Borough President Mark Levine: Well, the Council's job is to be an independent body. I've listened to many the members of color who are incredibly passionate about what the How Many Stops Act means to them in their constituents. It's absolutely a good thing that we have more data on the activities of our police force. Of course, I'm concerned about the paperwork burden on officers in general. I want to make sure that as this law's implemented we can minimize that in all aspects of police work. Again, at the end of the day, Council's an independent body, has a right to legislate. With the overwhelming vote in that body, I believe 42 out of the 51 indicates a pretty strong unity on this issue.

Brigid Bergin: We will leave it there for now. I want to thank Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine for joining us Definitely much more to talk about and watch here.

Borough President Mark Levine: Thank you, Brigid.

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