Mayor Eric Adams on Monday unveiled plans to transform how the city governs sidewalk construction sheds and scaffolding, promising to spur property owners to more quickly remove the structures that have become ubiquitous parts of the city’s streetscape.

The new “Get Sheds Down” initiative, a play on Adams’ “Get Stuff Done” slogan, also aims to replace construction scaffolding, whenever possible, with more aesthetically pleasing, less obtrusive alternatives like safety netting, the mayor said at a news conference in Manhattan.

“The sky is the limit. We must see the sky, and our sheds are in the way of doing that,” he said. “Today, we’re announcing our plan to take down unsightly sidewalk sheds and reclaim our streets.”

The structures, the mayor said, are not just eyesores: they block sunlight, deter pedestrians from entering businesses and “are a magnet for illegal activity.”

Adams said his administration will initially focus on four business districts — one in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, one in the Bronx and one in Queens — as it starts ramping up fines and oversight associated with longstanding sheds.

The focus, however, will be on property owners who have the resources to complete construction work and tear down their sheds.

“Let’s be clear: We’re not going to burden our small property owners who are still recovering from the pandemic, and public safety will always be our number one priority,” Adams said.

Currently, there are approximately 9,000 active, permitted construction sheds set up across the city, spanning nearly 400 miles and taking up around 3% of the city’s sidewalk space, Adams and the city’s Department of Buildings said in a news release.

Manhattan alone is home to about 4,000 of them, Borough President Mark Levine, who also attended the news conference, said.

Construction scaffolding has not always been a common sight in the five boroughs. A local law passed in 1980 after a Barnard College student was killed by a fallen piece of terra cotta required building owners to have their facades inspected every five years. 

To avoid the work and costs associated with set up and tear down, building owners began leaving scaffolding up between inspections. 

“If we’re honest about it, when we did an analysis, we realized that city rules are incentivizing property owners to leave sheds up and put off critical work,” Adams said.

According to the city, most sheds stay up for nearly 500 days, and some have been in place for more than a decade.

As part of Adams’ plan, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services will pilot using safety netting instead of traditional sheds as it continues to carry out façade work in front of the Queens County Supreme Court building on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, the release said.

The DOB issued permits for that construction shed more than six years ago, on April 21, 2017, according to the release.