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Architects Kickoff Open Restaurants Innovation Workshop

By Brian J Pape, AIA

February marked the beginning of a collaborative effort to work to resolve the perplexing problems posed by the Open Restaurants emergency program, in order for the city to propose permanent rules for outdoor dining. The February workshop was brought together by the NY Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY), and called the OPEN RESTAURANTS INNOVATION WORKSHOP. Since it includes not just designers, civic groups and foreign participants, but also representatives from the city Department of Transportation (DOT), the Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities (MOPD), and the Economic Development Commission (NYCEDC), they hope for a coordinated effort to create a more equitable and sustainable solution for the future program.

This effort is part of the rulemaking process that city agencies must take when proposing a rule, to provide New Yorkers with an opportunity to review and comment on the proposed rules, to encourage transparency in the rulemaking process. It is known as the City Administrative Procedure Act, or CAPA.

West Village’s narrow sidewalks and streets has the most heavily populated bar and restaurant outdoor dining of any neighborhood in the city. This local sidewalk photo shows a self-certified restaurant setup that violates many rules. Credit: Brian J Pape, AIA.

When City Council voted to morph the emergency program into a permanent Open Restaurants program, totally under the city DOT auspices, panic ensued, since the DOT had already failed at enforcing existing ‘rules of the road’. A ‘wild west’ of self-certified sheds proliferated across the city. In 2019, there were 1200 sidewalk cafes in the city, with community board oversight; by 2022, there were 12,000 outdoor cafes, with no community board oversight. A city councilman’s 2021 survey of West Village Open Restaurants sheds found that 93% of the sheds violated at least one of the existing rules for their construction, such as lack of access for those with disabilities, failure to provide adequate pathways, and enclosures that present unsanitary conditions.

Certainly, this is not the first effort by the creative community to address the complex nature of the Open Restaurants program. As WestView News reported in the February 2021 issue, designers from across the five boroughs, under the collective name “Design Corps”, had pitched in to help restaurant proprietors build better quality sheds for outdoor dining at the start of the pandemic back in June 2020. 

Then in December 2021, an ad hoc group called Alfresco NYC brought the Regional Planning Association (RPA), the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, and the Design Trust for Public Space together for a roundtable discussion of accessibility, community engagement, quality of life, and equity for the program.

The Department of City Planning and DOT website nyc.gov/openrestaurants shows the Alfresco NYC draft design guidelines, even though the city’s first draft of design guidelines won’t be published until March 2022. The stated Alfresco goals hope for joint coordination of enforcement issues, with DSNY (Sanitation) in charge of garbage, NYPD (Police) in charge of noise violations, DOHMH (Health) enforcing food safety, while DOT enforces barriers, ADA access, amplified sound, and street safety. The Design Goals, already shared by everyone at the roundtables and workshops, include: promote clean, attractive and well maintained setups that enhance the local community and work well; putting safety first, providing access for emergency vehicles and ensuring that setups contribute to safe streets for all users; flexibility for the wide variety of activity on NYC streets such as emergency utility work, maintenance and sanitation, varying street and neighborhood contexts.

General goals are fine but how will it look and work, when the permanent program is implemented in 2023? The website also dives into that. 

The rules could look a lot like the hard-fought-for Sidewalk Café rules previously in place, according to Julie Schipper, representing the DOT at the AIANY Workshop. For instance, the current draft proposal allows no propane heaters and no enclosed dining if there was none prior to January 2020. Again, no amplified sound will be permitted, and the seating may not extend beyond the business’ storefront. Both sidewalk and roadway seating will require license agreements, with license fees attached for any private use of public right-of-way. A full NYC DOT enforcement unit will be formed to enforce roadway structures, ADA compliance, clear path, and amplified noise devices. And the structures will not be allowed to be harbors for rats’ nests. The horrific conditions of nightly noise, garbage and rats caused by the emergency program forced some residents to sue the city to stop the nuisance.

There is also discussion about incorporating features of the DOT Street Seats program, in place for over a decade, wherein the seating areas on the streets are open to the public during the day, and all seating is brought in during closing hours, and totally cleared away during winter months.

This sounds like a return to common sense, while opening the program to new parts of the city in an equitable geographic fashion.

Brian J. Pape is a citizen architect in private practice, serving on the Manhattan District 2 Community Board Landmarks Committee and Quality of Life Committee, Co-chair of the American Institute of Architects NY Design for Aging Committee, is a member of AIANY Historic Buildings and Housing Committees, is LEED-AP “Green” certified, and is a journalist specializing in architecture subjects.

NYC.GOV website shows this diagram of rules governing outdoor dining, 90% of which are existing rules in place. Credit: NYC.GOV
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