Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, everyone. It is a great day to be here at Highbridge Gardens alongside my partners in government. As we remove the sheds that have blighted this community for more than five years. And I want to say thank you to our Council Member Althea Stevens; to our State Senator Jose Serrano; to our then-Council member, now-Assembly Member, [who] was then the sponsor of Local Law 47, Keith Powers; to our Assembly Member Landon Dais; to our Deputy Mayor of Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg; as well as our DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani.
In 1913, Manhattan Borough President George McAneny sounded the alarm about the consequences of industrial urbanization. Polluted air caught between hulking buildings, [and] streets where sunlight never reached the ground. Immediate regulations, he wrote, were needed to, “arrest the seriously increasing evil of the shutting off of light and air from other buildings and from the public streets.” Thus, the 1916 zoning resolution was born with the goal of bringing light, clean air and open space back to New Yorkers across the five boroughs.
NYCHA campuses like Highbridge were constructed with this in mind as they paired high-rise residential buildings with open, sunlit landscaped grounds. Residents were meant to be able to enjoy the light and fresh air in the campuses around their homes. And I want to also just take a moment to thank residents, especially our special shout-out to Highbridge Resident Association President Joanne Daughtry for continuing to advocate for exactly that.
Yet as we've seen, due to decades of chronic disinvestment in public housing, that promise was broken long ago. NYCHA campuses across our city have been covered with miles of sidewalk sheds for years on end, obstructing paths, co-opting open spaces, and sending the message to residents that they do not deserve the same light and fresh air accorded to other New Yorkers.
For more than five years, up until about six months ago, 4,100 linear feet of structures loomed across Highbridge Gardens, darkening walkways, preventing air circulation, and turning green grass to brown. So far, 1,400 feet have been removed, and as you can hear, another 1,400 are currently in [the] process of being taken down. That work is currently taking place, and the final 1,300 will be completed by the end of April. Citywide, sidewalk sheds cover 380 miles, or 7,500 city blocks, thanks to obscure and outdated regulations that make it easier to leave a building in disrepair than to fix the issues that are actually at hand. Some have lingered over our streets for more than 15 years.
As a result, New Yorkers have come to expect darkened sidewalks as just another frustration endemic to New York City. This is an issue that extends beyond the structures themselves. The state of our streets has a direct impact on New Yorkers' quality of life. No NYCHA resident should have to go about their days under corrugated tin and plywood simply because they live in public housing. No New Yorker should have their windows blocked out just because their landlord would rather shirk their responsibilities than fix what needs fixing.
This past October, I stood beneath the oldest sidewalk shed in our city, almost old enough to vote at 16 years old, and told New Yorkers that from City Hall, we would bring New York City's era of darkness to an end. Today, I am proud to announce that through direct investment and policy reform, City Hall is making good on that promise. First, here at Highbridge Gardens, NYCHA is investing $14.4 million in state funds to facilitate facade repairs across all six buildings, allowing them to remove these structures without it posing a safety risk to residents.
Second, our Department of Buildings is advancing two key rule changes to reduce the number of sheds across not only NYCHA campuses but our city as a whole. Currently, city law requires that sheds be placed at least half the height of the building away from the facade being inspected. On campuses like NYCHA, that means structures are mandated to be placed across open spaces that residents should be able to use and enjoy. Effective beginning this August, we will cap this distance at 40 feet, even for buildings taller than 80 feet, significantly reducing the coverage of outdoor spaces and walkways.
And just to put it very plainly, for a long time, the language of safety has been the stated intent behind the rules and regulations that we have in our city. But what we have known is, in fact, the extension of those sheds beyond 40 feet does not have all that much to do with safety, and yet it has an incredible impact on the quality of life of New Yorkers. So, we are interrogating every single rule and regulation that we have to answer the question of, [whether] this is necessary to keep New Yorkers safe. And if the answer is no, then it deserves to be changed.
To further reduce the number of sheds up at any time while ensuring pedestrian safety, we are also moving forward on the hands-on inspection cycle for buildings less than 40 years old with well-maintained facades, [which will] be increased from every five years to every 12 years, so we can keep our neighborhoods shed-free for longer. These rule changes, alongside others, are the ones that are ensuring that sunlight does not become a rarity in this city, but is it, in fact, something that New Yorkers can come to expect as they walk around the NYCHA residences that they call their home or anywhere, frankly, in this city. Reducing the number of these sheds, helps New Yorkers live a dignified life in the city that they love: an open walkway, a sunlit street, a fixed facade. These are the small changes that make a meaningful difference in people's lives.
And as we lead from City Hall, there will be no problem too big, no task too small for our attention and for our work. It is a privilege to be here with all of you today, to be here alongside partners at the city level, at the state level, [and] within our City government, as we all look to bring light back into New Yorkers' lives. Thank you very much. And I will now pass it over to our Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, Leila Bozorg.
Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg, Housing and Planning: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It's really great to be here with you all today to celebrate this occasion under clear skies. And clear skies mean something especially exciting today, that we can finally take down these sheds behind us here at Highbridge Gardens. These sheds specifically have been up for five years. That's five years that residents have had to walk under them [and] navigate around them just to enjoy fresh air and open space around them.
It's great to be here with so many of our partners and electeds: Council Member Stevens, Senator Serrano, Assembly Member Dais, Assembly Member Keith Powers. And I think [the] borough president's team is here, and she may be with us shortly. Thank you for having us in the Bronx. Assembly Member Powers was so instrumental when he was at the Council in actually passing the enabling legislation that allows us to pass the rules that we're here to talk about today.
And I especially want to thank the new Highbridge Resident Association President, Ms. Joanne Daughtry. Thank you for welcoming us here. I think she's been here as a resident for over 45 years, she was telling me. And I, of course, want to thank our amazing teams at NYCHA and at DOB, led by Lisa Bova-Hiatt and Ahmed Tigani. None of this would be possible without your teams and the technical leadership and the civil servants that make up your agencies.
And, of course, it's great to be here with our state partners because this work at Highbridge specifically is thanks to investments from our state partners, specifically for the facade repairs. That work is also taking place across 40 different developments at NYCHA. But we're not stopping there. As the mayor said, we're also taking really important action to reduce the number of sheds that have to go up moving forward.
On campuses like this one, where taller buildings are surrounded by open space, old rules used to require that sheds be put up far away from buildings, even though there was no risk to residents. DOB will soon be putting forward these new rules, limiting that distance now to 40 feet. We're also going to be creating [an] abbreviated filing program for buildings that we know are at lower risk for something falling.
And lastly, DOB is stepping up enforcement, too. A new agency rule will allow us to penalize building owners for keeping sheds up for too long and ensure that the public gets updates on sheds every 90 days. Together, these reforms will make a real difference for New Yorkers, whether you are a resident here at Highbridge or just someone walking down the street anywhere across the city. With that, I'm happy now to introduce Assembly Member Keith Powers.
Assembly Member Keith Powers: It is so exciting to be here, to be joining my colleagues, and thank you for letting me come up to the Bronx and thank you to the mayor for [such] a significant announcement for the lives of New Yorkers. One week ago, I got a text from a constituent at Campos Plaza right across the street from where I live that they had a plaza and there had been long-term scaffolding up there and it was finally coming down. And I actually was going to go there today and take a before and after photo. So, this is a better before and after photo.
We embarked on this mission to take down scaffolding years ago not only because [of] the way it impacts these campuses but [also] our small businesses, the public safety, and the appearance of our neighborhood. And it was administrative dysfunction to continue to have scaffolding those up for decades, longer than many New Yorkers have even been alive. We passed legislation in the City Council to start this process of making much more sense of our neighborhoods and much more sense of the scaffolding laws in New York City.
And today, [it] is the realization of those efforts. For the people that live in this community, but also if you live in a Mitchell-Lama campus [or] if you live in Stuyvesant Town where I live, you are starting to see less scaffolding in your neighborhoods. This is a part of our bill that I think was understated but is super important to the lives of New Yorkers. I also want to note, because this is in the announcement as well, a very big deal, which is that 5 to 12 switch for buildings that are in good condition no longer have to live in a regime of every five years. You can clap for that.
If you are a building owner in New York City, if you are a co-op or a condo, that is very big news for your building. That will actually reduce the cost of living in New York City for those people in those cities. So, I want to thank the mayor for moving quickly. What day is it? [On] day 65, to move quickly to put that law actually into effect and to deliver good news for New Yorkers. It's a very good day. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Now we'll hear from Council Member Stevens and a long-time advocate for NYCHA residents as well.
Council Member Althea Stevens: Good morning. Y'all not excited enough. Today's a good day. Scaffolding is coming down at Highbridge. Listen, I heard today that the scaffolding had been up for five years, which means the scaffolding has been up the entire time I've been in Council. And so, I am happy that while I'm in Council it is coming down, and this is a good day. And you guys are actually in the space where they hold their family day every year. And as you can see, they were obstructed because of all the scaffolding that really blocked up light in places where people could sit and commune.
So, I'm really excited about this announcement today. I want to give again another shout-out to the tenant association president who's here, who's also been advocating for this for [the] entirety of [her] being here. And even when we're talking about these reforms, one of the reforms is actually some legislation that I passed, which is a public notification around scaffolding going up. That is something that the Council passed in December.
And I really led the charge on that because one of the things we kept getting in our office was people coming in saying, “When is the scaffolding coming down? Who put it up?” And had so many questions. And there wasn't information being shared with the public. And so, we passed this legislation so now not only will the elected officials be notified, but every community board in New York City will be notified of when scaffolding is coming up and where they're at in the process. So, I know sometimes we're like — scaffolding — this isn't a sexy topic.
But it is because this is about quality of life. This is about public safety and understanding that in a lot of these corridors, scaffolding is up. It is dark, especially when it rains. It's dripping. We don't know what's dripping on us. And so, this is one step closer to not only having an affordable city, but having a safe city. So, thank you to Mayor Mamdani for having a vision and making this a priority and making New York City even better.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Next we'll hear from Assembly Member Dais.
Assembly Member Landon C. Dais: I'll be very brief. First off, welcome to my district. Highbridge Gardens is a proud community — Ms. Daughtry, we do a lot of food distributions, [and] work together here, and I'm proud to have this community. As someone who had a construction background, this makes a lot of sense. The mayor ran a campaign about affordability, and this is one way to attack the affordability issue.
When we can lower the maintenance costs for some of the buildings in our districts, that will trickle down to the residents to make sure that the prices and the maintenance of those buildings do not go up. So, moving it from five years to 12 years is a common-sense regulatory practice that makes sense, and I'm glad he does this. And I'll leave on a note. My dad lives in Harlem on 117th Street, and all he complains about is the scaffolding on the corner of his block.
And when I tell you, my father will be extremely happy about this, and he will be your number-one fan of this. He truly means it. And I just want to say thank you to his administration. I want to [say] thank you to DOB. And one last thing, I want to give credit to DOB. We had an issue— me and the senator. We're at 900 Ogden Avenue, and DOB had an issue with elevators, and they got right on it. So, I want to say thank you to your staff's quick responses and getting things done. So, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: We were just joined as well by Council Member Sanchez, head of Housing and Buildings. Thank you for being here. We'll hear now from Senator Serrano.
New York State Senator José M. Serrano: Thank you very much. I'll be brief. It really is a pleasure to be here with all of you, and thanks so much, mayor, for your leadership on this issue and [to] all my colleagues in government. You know, I was just thinking, after the winter that we've been having, we need sunlight more than ever. So, the more obstructions we can remove, the better. But really, this is a very common-sense approach, really bringing back our neighborhoods and giving us all the things that we need. So grateful that this is being done in a safe way and in a proper way, and congrats to all who made this happen. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: We’re gonna hear from our borough president, Vanessa Gibson.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, Highbridge Gardens. It's always good to be back here at a community that I love so much, that I was very proud to represent as a member of the New York State Assembly and the New York City Council, and now as Bronx Borough President. I do apologize for being late. I was at a school giving out a check for $1 million, and the children would not let me go, Mr. Mayor, so I do apologize. But thank you to our mayor, Zohran Mamdani; and to our deputy mayor, Leila Bozorg; and to my elected officials, our state senator, Jose Marco Serrano; our Assemblyman, Landon Dais; and our Council member, Althea Stevens. I also want to recognize our Department of Buildings commissioner, Ahmed Tigani — saw you just yesterday — and really everyone here at Highbridge Gardens.
This is an important announcement for a time like this, working collaboratively with the New York City Housing Authority and so many others. We have invested here in Highbridge for years, but we know that sidewalk sheds, scaffolding — we have a couple of names for them — have not only been an eyesore, but truly, we must make sure that if scaffolding is up, it means that work is happening and capital investments are happening here at Highbridge Gardens. So, I want to thank the mayor for this important announcement today, because expediting this process and making sure that the health, wellness and safety of all of our residents and families here at Highbridge is absolutely paramount to this work. I have so many memories here at Highbridge Gardens, with all of my elected officials, from family days to food giveaways, visiting the older adult center, the community center where Catholic Charities is.
We've done a lot here in Highbridge, but we know we have to keep going. Sidewalk sheds were created with a clear and an important purpose. To protect pedestrians and residents and older adults from potentially hazardous conditions during construction and or repair work. Safety must always remain at the top of our conversations, and we truly know that it is intended to be a temporary safety measure and not a permanent fixture. And unfortunately, in many parts of our borough, including public housing, it has become a permanent fixture. New Yorkers often walk under dark conditions with poor lighting. Aging sidewalk sheds that seem to remain in place indefinitely, they block sunlight, they discourage foot traffic, and they create an unsafe environment, oftentimes, especially for many of our older adults.
When these sheds remain up for years, they change the character of our neighborhoods, and truly, these are corridors that we want residents to feel safe in. So, as we reduce the number, and I want to say end the number of sidewalk sheds, Mr. Mayor, as we continue to do work, we are reclaiming public spaces for [the] public good. Our sidewalks are meant to be lively, safe, attractive, and accessible places where our community can walk, they can shop and connect with their neighbors. And that's what this neighborhood is here at Highbridge Gardens. And so, that's why today's announcement is making meaningful steps to address this issue. And I know Highbridge is excited about this, getting more attention, improving enforcement, and encouraging timely building repairs and modernizing our sidewalk shed design, and the entire process of that.
We truly can ensure that these structures are used only when necessary, and only for the duration in which it is needed. At the same time, we must continue to uphold strong safety and building standards, and I want to acknowledge NYCHA and the Department of Buildings, because our goal is not to eliminate pedestrian protection, but it's to ensure that property owners and everyone that works here in housing, responds in a timely fashion to repairs, and acts as a responsible neighbor. That is what Highbridge wants, that's what Highbridge deserves, and I'm so grateful that all of you are here for this important announcement. And once again, thank you to our mayor, our deputy mayor, our commissioner [and] my elected officials.
But most importantly, as I close, let me thank the residents and families of Highbridge Gardens; our tenant president, Joanne Daughtry; the former president, Norman Sobie McGill; and everyone who has labored here in Highbridge for a long time. You all have been living under conditions that are not the best, and we are thankful for your patience, because you have waited a long time. Joanne, and everyone that I know, I see you, family, and I love and appreciate you, because you've always tried to make sure that we hold ourselves accountable. So, thank you, Highbridge Gardens, this is really all for you and our older adults. And I look forward to more fruitful and productive partnerships with our mayor and his team ahead here in Highbridge and other places in the Bronx. Thank you so much, everyone.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Thank you, borough president. We will now hear from Council Member Pierina Sanchez.
Council Member Pierina Sanchez: Good morning, everyone. First, I just want to take a moment, mayor, to thank you for being in the Bronx, being here for the Bronx this week. You’ve really done it up. The child care announcement, including Fordham University and — I'm sorry, Fordham and Kingsbridge on Monday — and then I think yesterday, [the] Parks [announcement of] $50 million yesterday. And then here we are today with this major announcement that is going to really change the campuses at NYCHA across the city. This is really important. I just want to set that context that you probably mentioned, that we have 400 miles of scaffolding across the City of New York. That's places that are darker, that are less safe, that don't feel as nice and welcoming, where we don't get sunlight, as the Senator said, across our city.
And this is a major step forward in conversations that we've been having over the past couple of years. Thank you, commissioner. I see the DOB team. Mayor, we're very close, the DOB team and I. Ahmed and I were texting late last night over another fire. But we get stuff done. We work very hard together. So, just thank you for this announcement. Thank you for continuing that work to get all the sheds down across the city. We want to honor [Grace] Gold, who we lost 45 years ago after a brick fell as she was going to her graduation at Columbia University. And we want to honor that legacy scaffolder here to keep New Yorkers safe. But it was never intended for them to be this pervasive and this longstanding. So, thank you, Mayor, for this announcement.
Question: Hello, Mayor and everyone else. I just wanted to ask: how does this differ from the Get Sheds Down initiative that was implemented under the Adams administration? And what do the penalties look like for these building owners who do not comply with the inspection updates and getting the — taking down the scaffolding in a timely manner?
Mayor Mamdani: So, the first thing is that we're utilizing every single tool at our disposal. And what that means is not only embracing the legislation that was passed, but also aggressively pursuing the rule reform and the regulatory reforms that we can take. And this is just one example of what we're talking about. We have also been hard at work in removing the sidewalk shed at 253 Broadway just across the street from City Hall. There are a number of other sidewalk sheds across New York City that have been removed. Because I think as so many of the elected leaders here have said, this was never the intention in our city, and yet it has become the norm.
The other part of this is that, yes, there will be — we will hold building owners accountable. But before we talk about punishment and fines and fees, the thing we're most interested in, frankly, is compliance. And so that's what is also motivating the decisions that we're making when moving from the five years to the 12 years for well-maintained safety over the last 40 years, an inspection that would happen every five years, as opposed to even moving that on a broad level to every six years. It's asking ourselves, is this needed for compliance? Is this needed for safety? If it's not, let's ensure that it's actually doable. And I'll just pass it over to our deputy mayor to speak a little bit further on the questions.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: So, these will be new rules to help implement actually being able to effectuate getting more sheds down. So, that's part of what's new. We also added some money into the recent budget to give DOB the staff they need to actually get sheds down and do the enforcement. So, following through on some of the necessary funding and rulemaking is a key part of what we're doing here.
Question: Can you clarify this five- to 12-year change, and what makes a building in good condition? I mean, the whole reason this entire thing started was because a student was hit with a piece of facade and was severely injured. I mean, how do you even decide by the outside that a building's in good condition?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I have some assistance, perhaps, in the question. But I am going to pass it over in a moment to our DOB Commissioner. What I will say is that safety is paramount to every decision we make. I want to go back to what we spoke about earlier about the previous rule that required sidewalk sheds at half the feet of the height of the building extending out. That wasn't a relationship between any level of danger from repairs on that building to those pedestrians walking underneath. It was an arbitrary rule that was, however, ensuring that the taller the building, the more you would have a tin roof above New Yorkers' heads as they walked across. And that's something that NYCHA residents feel, especially given the typical height of buildings on NYCHA campuses. Commissioner, if you'd like to add anything.
Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, Department of Buildings: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, just taking a step back, every building is required at their point when their cycle comes up to do an engineering analysis. They hire a qualified external wall inspector, an engineer who is trained to evaluate and do a hands-on assessment, visual assessment, take samples. Really understand the stress of that building. If, at the end of that engineering report, they make a determination that it is safe, and the building is under 40 years, they can qualify for this abbreviated assessment. Where, after that safe designation, they do not have to do another full all-hands inspection, but there is an abbreviated cycle where every three years they'll do a visual inspection.
So, this is — again, taking a step back — we did a report, an 18-month analysis looking at tens of thousands of facade inspections. We talked to cities across the globe and here throughout the United States about what data they were seeing, what outcomes were happening. At the end of that, [Thornton] Tomasetti, which is a world-renowned engineering firm, worked with us to come up with recommendations. And we saw that buildings that met this profile, met this eligibility of a safe condition, that already had an engineer count it as safe. We had complementary visual inspections, we can avoid the cost of the all-hands-on, and we can extend that period from five to 12. That is also the basis, the comprehensive assessment that allows us to safely and wisely move it from five to six.
Mayor Mamdani: Just before we go to the next question, I think the last thing I'll just emphasize on the commissioner's points is what we heard from the Assembly Member, Assembly member Dais, which is that the knock-on effects of an antiquated regulatory system also mean increased costs for building owners, increased costs in the realm of maintenance, increased costs that are often also passed on. And when we are talking about ensuring that our intent is matching up with the impact when it comes to safety, it is also looking at controlling those costs to make it that much easier to not just build housing in New York City, also to maintain housing in New York City, and to live in that same housing.
Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. You should have a chance, I think, to respond to this. It's an off-topic question. I'd like to know what your reaction was to the article in the Jewish Insider that was posted about your wife's social media activity. And what I'm wondering is, you know, you're an elected official. She is not. Is it anybody's business, and is it fair to question you about it?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, my wife is the love of my life, and she's also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my city hall. I, however, was elected to represent all 8.5 million people in this city, and I believe that it's my responsibility because of that role to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions.
Question: So, last year you said that if there was any internal opposition to — within DOT — to universal daylighting, you would push back against it. Now your own commissioner is siding with these DOT insiders in opposing universal daylighting. At the same time, the same thing has happened with the criminal summons policy. You were pretty clear you were against it, and Commissioner Tisch is still ordering precincts to do it. Same with the FDNY. You know, someone from the FDNY recently told City Council that they oppose protected bike lanes, which you have been pretty clear that you support. I'm wondering what's happening here. Are they not listening to you, or have you changed your mind on these things?
Mayor Mamdani: So, I want to be very clear that we are going to pursue an agenda that make our streets safe for every New Yorker, and that means it doesn't matter the mode of transit that you are using, whether you're a pedestrian, you're a cyclist, you're a driver, or you're getting on a bus or riding a train. We're going to see the kind of development of protected bike lanes and protected bus lanes across the city that we haven't seen in many years. And I'm fully confident in my DOT commissioner in ensuring that that is not only a vision, but that is also something that we pursue and that we deliver.
And so much — you know, earlier I was asked, what's the difference [between] the previous administration's commitment to sidewalk sheds, [and] this administration's commitment to sidewalk sheds. I think you will find the difference in politics comes down to the results, comes down to whether you can deliver on this vision. And I know that we are early in the administration. I think we've said it's 65 days. However, every single day is an opportunity for us to prove that, and we will continue to do so to New Yorkers, both in terms of our policy for our streets, but also in terms of our policy for keeping New Yorkers safe. Thank you.
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