NYC Permanent Open Restaurants Hearing

On Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the New York City Council Committees on Consumer and Worker Protections and the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a joint hearing to consider amendments to the Zoning Resolution and the Administrative Code related to a permanent outdoor dining program, also known as “Open Restaurants”. The hearing considered two pieces of legislation that would be necessary to set up a permanent outdoor dining program: a zoning text amendment that would remove sidewalk cafes from the existing zoning resolution and eliminate geographic limitations for outdoor cafes; and Int. No. 31, which would amend the administrative code to transfer control of outdoor dining from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to the Department of Transportation (DOT), as well as set up fees, rules, licenses and a revocable consent process for outdoor dining.

The new NYC Permanent Open Restaurants Program – if approved – will consist of sidewalk and roadway cafes and will be administered by DOT. At last week’s all day hearing, many City officials, including the new DOT Commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez as well as Carolyn Grossman Meagher, Director of Regional Planning at the NYC Department of City Planning, testified in support of the new program. There was lots of testimony on both sides of the issue with some people loving outdoor dining and some people opposed. As reported in Crain’s, DOT shared that the new program, as they currently envision it, would no longer allow dining sheds. AM New York and the Daily News also reported on the hearing and noted that the City will also be stepping up enforcement on current outdoor dining setups until a permanent program is in place.

It’s our understanding that the temporary outdoor dining program will continue under an Emergency order for the time being and the new program, if approved, will be implemented in 2023. For more information on the NYC Permanent Open Restaurants Program, visit DOT’s website by clicking here. You can also follow the public review process on City Planning’s site here: NYC Planning - Zoning Application Search.

Photo credit: Old John's Diner