‘Shed’ a tear over NyChA
Agency lets scaffoldings waste for years
THE HOUSING Authority has let thousands of sidewalk sheds languish for years at its developments, creating hazardous conditions for tenants and wasting taxpayer dollars, a Daily News review has found.
For the first time NYCHA last week revealed the extent of the problem — an amazing 40.1 miles of sheds and scaffolds that as of last year were clogging up sidewalks across the agency’s 334 developments.
Dozens of these sheds stay in place two, three and even fouryears — far more than the average life span for a shed in the city of just over one year.
Tenants say the sheds — usually put up after NYCHA is ordered by the city to repair decaying brickwork — are unsightly, unsanitary and unsafe. They become dumping grounds for trash, havens for rodents, shelter for criminals and they’re often falling apart.
City buildings inspectors spotchecking scaffolds at NYCHA properties have repeatedly cited them for unsafe conditions, including exposed wires, collapsing scaffolding and lights that don’t function, recordsshow.
Last week Councilman Ritchie Torres, chairman of the Public Housing Committee, found a collapsing shed at the Park side Houses in the Bronx. Plywood was hanging by a thread off scaffolding, dangling over-passers by.
“It could have killed someone,” het old The News.
Ashed in the Red Hookd evelopments in Brooklyn put up more than three years ago is still there, despite being hit by 29 safety violations. That includes citations after an exposed wire touching the scaffolding shocked a4-year-old girl.
A shed at the Redfern Houses in Far Rockaway, Queens, that went up in April 2010 was issued a partial stop-work order last fall when the city found scaffolding beams weren’t properly installed. It was dismantled on New Year’s Eve.
Last week NYCHA General Manag- er Cecil House promised a more aggressive approach, saying, “For too long, NYCHA residents have had to live with sidewalk sheds still in place for years after the work that made them necessary was completed.”
NYCHA officials say they’ve recently initiated new tactics to begin taking down unneeded sheds, removing them from 188 buildings citywide in 2013. That still leaves 24.2 miles to go, with more going up everyday.
Nearly half of the 188 sheds taken down last year had been up for at least two years, including 34 where the sheds were up for three years, and two where the sheds have been up since 2009. The oldest shed in the city was at the Butler Houses in the Bronx, going up in November 2009 and coming down in September.
Sheds remain at hundreds of buildings at 133 developments across thecity.
Tenants hear differ- ent stories about why the sheds are needed, from fixing deteriorating brickwork to shielding the street from falling air conditioners.
“They didn’t do no bricks. They didn’t fix nothing,” said tenant Richard Rodriguez, 40, at the Jackson Houses in the Bronx where a shed went up in December 2009 and came down almost four years to the day on Dec.12.
Another Jackson tenant, Tony Lopez, 49, recalled that the shed was there so long, “On the top it use to grow little trees.”
Torres blames the problem on a lack of funding that keeps NYCHA from quickly addressing the brick repairs that make the sheds necessary. As a result, there are sometimes sheds but no repairs.
On Friday NYCHA officials said they spent $6.2 million last year on shed/scaffolding contractors, up nearly 20% from the $5.2 million spent in 2012.