The 1,400 residents of Highbridge Gardens in the Bronx have been living in the shadows for years. Their day-to-day lives, eclipsed by a network of steel frames and wooden planks.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Department of Buildings announced a series of new rules to take down unnecessary sidewalk sheds and reduce the amount of scaffolding needed for some construction projects.
The 1,400 residents of Highbridge Gardens in the Bronx have been living in the shadows for years. Their day-to-day lives, eclipsed by a network of steel frames and wooden planks. Scaffolding, also known as "sidewalk sheds," are intended to protect them from the crumbling facades of their own buildings. On Friday morning, Mayor Mamdani told tenants that all of it is coming down. "Citywide sidewalk sheds cover 380 miles or 7,500 city blocks, thanks to obscure and outdated regulations that make it easier to leave a building in disrepair than to fix the issues that are actually at hand.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," Mamdani said. The mayor announced a series of rule changes intended to remove all but the most necessary scaffolding across the city. The changes would limit the distance scaffolding can extend from a building and extend time between facade inspections to 12 years for buildings up to 40 years old. "We are interrogating every single rule and regulation that we have, to answer the question of: Is this necessary to keep New Yorkers safe? And if the answer is no, then it deserves to be changed," Mamdani said. It's often cheaper for landlords to erect scaffolding than to make the actual repairs that required it. The owners of 409 Edgecombe Avenue, for example, were fined and the scaffolding there was later removed after standing for 16 years. It's been five years so far for residents in Highbridge, who say the scaffolding there has made them less safe in other ways. "People have got robbed around here while these scaffold was up. It's very dangerous. Very dangerous. So I'm one of the tenants who is happy that it's coming down," Highbridge Gardens resident Edries Levestone said. While the change in policy is welcomed, other Highbridge Gardens residents like Joanne Daughtry say the issue is not new. "It is a good thing that they talked about it today, but this should have been talked about, this been up for a long time too, especially in Highbridge," Daughtry said. Over the past few months, the city's building department has reduced scaffolding by 17% citywide. Some of it is temporary and necessary, but a lot of it still needs to come down. Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo,
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