The Real Estate Board of New York to The NYC Department of Buildings on Rules Relating to Sidewalk Sheds

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The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) is the City's leading real estate trade association representing commercial, residential, and institutional property owners, builders, managers, investors, brokers, salespeople, and other organizations and individuals active in New York City real estate. REBNY appreciates this opportunity to submit comments to the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) on their proposed rules regarding sidewalk sheds.

In April 2025, the Mayor signed into local law the five bills passed by the City Council related to sidewalk sheds. These rules pertain to implementing two of those laws, Local Law (LL) 48 and LL 51 of 2025, which together:

1. allow for penalties to be assessed to owners where sidewalk sheds are in the public right-of-way and where no active work has occurred during a 90-day permit period and;

2. Penalties for failure to complete façade work in a timely manner.

Both of these laws took effect on January 12, 2026.

Presently, DOB proposes as follows the filing requirements for each new 90-day permit to consist of:

• work progress during the previous 90 days,

• applications for a new 90-day permit,

• construction documents,

• façade repair permit documents, and

• documents showing work completed.

The rule also sets out the timing to perform work to address the condition that requires a sidewalk shed; requirements related to physical inspections of facades; and the requirement to update a work log at least every 7 days. The responsibilities of design professionals, including the filing of reports, are also covered by the proposed rules. Failure to file any of the aforementioned documents and failure to complete work could result in fines for the owner. Lastly, the rule also sets out a process to request extensions for milestones set out in filed documents, which in turn requires extensive filings and the payment of fees.

REBNY recognizes that sidewalk sheds that remain in the public right-of-way can be a public nuisance that creates any number of problems. In general, we support the City's efforts to incentivize the timely completion of façade work and removal of sidewalk sheds and other efforts to improve sidewalk shed design and to minimize their use while still protecting the public. In fact, it is very much in the interest of REBNY members who own and manage buildings to complete work and remove sheds as quickly as possible, as their tenants also dislike the conditions that sidewalk sheds cause, and maintaining sidewalk sheds is expensive.

However, in discussions with the City Council, the Mayor's Office, and City agencies, among others, during the development of these two local laws, REBNY repeatedly stressed the reality that façade work may take significantly longer than the deadlines that LLs 48 and 51 establish, both for stages of work and work in its totality, because the work entailed is extensive, or there are delays outside of the control of a building owner such as supply chain issues, weather, and the like. The disconnect between these real constraints and the timeframes set in law and the subsequent strict adherence to them in the proposed rule can be addressed through rule making by establishing clear deadline extension criteria and simplifying paperwork for reporting.

The rule as proposed instead would require extensive and seemingly duplicative reporting that would consume significant time and resources and would likely interfere significantly with getting work done. It seems to assume that owners are operating or want to operate in bad faith, and so they need to constantly justify and file documents demonstrating that they are, in fact, trying to complete work. Even the process of getting justified extensions requires constant filings.

Many owners execute contracts with appropriate design professionals that include a proposed work schedule from the beginning to the end of proposed façade work. This contract should be sufficient to comply with the requirements of LLs 48 and 51, with minimal 90-day filings stating that work is proceeding as planned. If weather conditions, unforeseen supply chain issues, or other unforeseen matters (such as the need to do more extensive repair work than was evident before work started) cause significant delays to a project, there should be a relatively simple process for justifying that delay and applying for an extension.

The rule also requires a weekly update to work logs and suggests that penalties could be assessed if work is not progressing. REBNY believes that weekly updates are too frequent and burdensome, and, for the reasons given earlier, there will be weeks, and even series of weeks, where work may not proceed due to reasons outside of the control of owners. Again, penalties should not be assessed under these circumstances, and the 90-day reports and written contracts should suffice to document work progress.

As proposed, this rule would impose significant and often unnecessary paperwork for owners to generate and for regulators to process and review. Neither of those burdens are likely to significantly reduce the time that sidewalk sheds are up, and in fact they would probably do the opposite. REBNY recommends that the Department of Buildings work with stakeholders such as REBNY to come up with a more reasonable approach to implementing LLs 48 and 51 before the final rule is issued.

Thank you once again for this opportunity to submit testimony on this draft rule, and we look forward to continued dialogue to implement the timely removal of sidewalk sheds.

CONTACT:

Daniel Avery

Director of Policy

Real Estate Board of New York [email protected]