Shed foes call for end to roadway use, urge ‘equitable’ plan in ‘Community Blueprint for Outdoor Dining’

BY THE VILLAGE SUN | As the City Council works obscurely behind closed doors on a plan to make outdoor dining permanent, community residents have publicly unveiled their own plan. The ad hoc group CUEUP (Coalition United for Equitable Urban Policy) — a.k.a. the anti-shedders — has released a “Community Blueprint for Outdoor Dining.”

Word has it that the Council is poised to vote in April on a bill, Intro. No. 31-A, to lock in Open Restaurants for the future.

CUEUP is comprised of block associations from some of the city’s most nightlife-saturated areas, including Greenwich Village, the East Village, Lower East Side, Chelsea, Chinatown, Williamsburg, Bushwick and Sunnyside.

Decrying Open Restaurants as “Mayor Adams’s broken plan” and “top-down, lobbyist-driven restaurant legislation,” the block association members are pitching their own alternative, calling it “neighborhood friendly.”

The coalition’s 10-point blueprint calls for a complete end to roadway dining — plus implementation of a seasonal program with reduced hours of operation to ensure quiet in residential areas.

Ending roadway dining, CUEUP argues, would “enhance street cleaning, reduce emergency vehicle response times and reduce rat infestations.”

“End roadbed dining now,” the manifesto declares. “Take down the sheds, remove the decks.” The position paper notes that Sanitation street sweepers haven’t cleaned underneath the shed platforms in the restaurant-filled streets for two years now.

“Sunset all roadway sheds now,” the blueprint urges, “then roll out citywide street cleaning and rat abatement programs.”

The group is calling for a 50 percent reduction in the amount of outdoor dining — cutting the number down to 5,900 sidewalk cafes. Pre-pandemic there were around 1,200 sidewalk cafes citywide. Now, after the implementation of the pandemic emergency outdoor dining plan, there are more than 10 times that amount.

CUEUP stresses that any permanent outdoor dining plan must be equitable — as in, proportionate to different neighborhoods’ levels of bar and restaurant saturation.

“Some neighborhoods have just a few outdoor dining setups,” their blueprint says, “while others — Williamsburg, Astoria, the Village and the Lower East Side — are saturated beyond endurance. To avoid saturation in residential areas, ensure one block has no more than one or two licenses. Limit the number of cafe licenses in each community board to 100, or the number pre-pandemic, whichever is greater. This creates 5,900-plus outdoor dining sites — 5 times the pre-pandemic number of sidewalk cafes — and gives restaurants new incentives to open in the outer boroughs.”

On noise, the coalition states, “To respect the rights of New York residents to the quiet use of their homes, closing times for outdoor dining spaces in residential and mixed-use neighborhoods should be the later of 6 p.m. or sunset.”

In addition, citing the global climate crisis, CUEUP says there should be no heating or cooling of outdoor dining spaces and that the program should only be seasonal, which would not require such fossil-fuel-burning measures.

“New York City declared a climate emergency!” the coalition notes. “So has France, where they’ve banned all outdoor heaters because of the effect on the climate. We must take climate change seriously and do the same. Seasonal open-air dining makes sense. Heating and cooling the outdoors does not.”

The proposal also calls for community board input on outdoor dining sites, noting that the City Council’s bill reportedly would reduce the local boards’ oversight. Community boards should be given 45 days to review applications and consider neighborhood input, according to CUEUP.

Restaurants should also pay a sliding-scale fee for outdoor dining, the activists say, noting that this fee should be based on “fair market value” — meaning significantly more expensive in Manhattan than versus the rest of the city.

Pedestrian right of way also must be restored, the CUEUP blueprint says: Pedestrians and wheelchair users must be ensured at least an 8-foot-wide sidewalk space or 50 percent of the sidewalk, whichever is greater.

In addition, CUEUP wants the Department of Transportation booted from oversight of outdoor dining — decrying its “failed management” of the program — to be replaced by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which formerly ran the sidewalk cafe program.

Furthermore, not only restaurants and bars should be given use of coveted outdoor space, the coalition argues.

“Give public space back to the public,” the manifesto states. “Don’t let restaurants cut to the front of the line for curbside and sidewalk use.”

CUEUP suggests that other “genuine, noncommercial uses” also be considered for this outdoor space, such as loading zones, which are used by businesses and residents alike, bike parking “for non-rental bikes,” forward-thinking trash-removal techniques and residential and visitor parking permits.

“And while we’re at,” the blueprint offers, “let’s add more trees. Our streets can use the shade and beauty of more trees.”