Scaffolding Has Encased My Building for Years. What Can I Do?

Q: We live in a building in Manhattan with a mix of more than 200 rent-stabilized and market-rate apartments. Since 2022, scaffolding has encased the entire building. The permit has been renewed multiple times. For a few months in 2022, work was being done on the roof, but there have been no repairs to the roof or facade since. I’ve heard that the scaffolding is in place to prevent building materials from falling on people. Is it possible that it’s cheaper for the landlord to pay for all the permits for the scaffolding, as opposed to doing the work? It is dismal living under this. What can we do?

A: Landlords sometimes try to save money by keeping sidewalk sheds and scaffolding up for years instead of doing needed repairs to roofs and facades. As of March, there were more than 8,400 sidewalk sheds around the city, more than 300 of which had been up for over five years.

But you don’t have to live like this. You can call 311 to file a complaint with the Department of Buildings, which has new tools to enforce building equipment that stays in place too long.

The city has taken action on longstanding sheds, enacting laws to reduce the length of time for permits from one year to three months, and lengthening the time between facade inspections for new buildings, with the intent of limiting the number of sheds.

Starting next year, there will be monthly penalties for sheds that are up for more than 90 days. The city expects that the new penalties will force repairs to happen more quickly, thus reducing the length of time sheds and scaffolding are required, a Department of Buildings spokesman said.

“Now the Department of Buildings can say you haven’t done any work,” said Logan Lowe, a real estate lawyer with Woods Lonergan who has dealt with the scaffolding issue in his own building.

Rent-stabilized tenants can also file complaints to the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal, which could issue a rent reduction order based on unnecessary scaffolding at your building, said David A. Kaminsky, who practices real estate law in New York. If you can gather your neighbors to make the complaint together, you’ll have a bigger impact.

There is probably lease language used at your building that limits the ability of a residential tenant to complain about scaffolding, although the state law outlining the warranty of habitability could be construed as invalidating such a clause, Mr. Kaminsky said.