Scaffolding covers 386 miles of sidewalk in New York City, equal to the distance from here to Canada. While it’s hard to imagine that the City’s scaffolding problem could get any worse, 7,342 sidewalks sheds have been added since April 2018 with each remaining erect for 1,514 days on average—that’s more than 4 years. As Ben told NY1, we need building owners and landlords to take care of their buildings, rather than putting up scaffolding for a loose brick and leaving it up for years. The good news is that a bill Ben co-sponsored with Housing and Buildings Chair Robert Cornegy became law to require the Department of Buildings to study the use of drones for inspecting building façades.
As Borough President, Ben will pass a law to allow facade inspections using drones so building owners can save time and money and most importantly avoid putting up sidewalk sheds and scaffolding for no reason.