DOT updates Queens borough board on Open Restaurants

The Department of Transportation introduced more details about its permanent Open Restaurants program in front of the Queens Borough Board this week. Photo via DOT

By Jacob Kaye

The city is beginning to make its rounds from borough to borough, updating the public on its plans to make open dining a permanent part of city life.

Presenting to the Queens Borough Board this week, the Department of Transportation provided updated details on a proposed text amendment to the City Charter that would make the pandemic-era Open Restaurants program permanent beginning in 2023.

The presentation began to flesh out some of the details of the program, something detractors say has been missing throughout the process.

Enforcement, fees and guidelines – three issues members of the borough board, which includes Community Board chairs and City Councilmembers, have raised concerns about in the past – were again brought up during Monday’s meeting. Though new details were provided, a general vagueness still remains.

That’s to be expected, DOT representatives said Monday. The agency is hoping to issue draft guidelines for the program in March 2022, potentially months after the program is approved by the City Council.

“We are, at this moment, building upon a lot of the feedback that we heard about the emergency program on the ground, both what’s working and what’s not working,” said Emily Weidenhof, the director of public space at the DOT. “Using that feedback, we’ve laid out these series of goals for the permanent program design guidelines to really focus on and really fine tune how we can better have outdoor dining but also continue to allow our streets and sidewalks to be shared by all the other users that need them.”

Weidenhof said the agency’s main focus was on accessible set ups, structures that allow emergency vehicles to make their way through the streets, eliminating safety hazards, promoting coordination with other agencies surrounding the program, making the program equitable for restaurants and neighborhoods throughout the city and encouraging clean and attractive set ups.

Alongside DOT Queens Commissioner Nicole Garcia, Weidenhof shared some new details expected to make their way into the final plan. Though the program is currently free for restaurants to use, the DOT expects a fee will be associated with participation in the future.

Also, outdoor dining structures may become seasonal and less permanent – Weidenhof said that the structures may need to move during the winter months when snow plows may be needed.

The borough board previously voted 7-6, with 6 abstentions, against the proposal in October. Many board chairs cited what they felt was a lack of plan surrounding enforcement of non-compliant restaurateurs.

The sentiment was again shared on Monday.

“That was my major concern, that there was not enough personnel to do enforcement,” said Bryan Block, the board chair of Community Board 13. “I’m still not hearing what was my concern, even though I did vote for the amendment, with regards to more additional personnel. I’ve heard...talk about pulling people from other departments and I’m still uncomfortable.”

“It sounds like you're robbing from Peter to pay Paul, using different agencies, and I say that respectfully,” he added.

Garcia said that the DOT had begun searching for a director of Open Restaurants to lead the program and that they were also looking for people to do enforcement work.

“We have postings, and we’re sharing that,” Garcia said. “We will try to onboard these people as quickly as possible.”

“All of the boards that we’ve met with in Queens… it’s mostly centered around enforcement and we’ve learned a lot since the program has come about, we’ve gotten more resources,” Garcia added. “We’re getting to the bad actors quicker and then, obviously, now that this is moving forward, there are resources that we will be bringing into the agency to do a better job of managing that.”

Any lack of enforcement in the past year has been because the DOT didn’t want to be too punitive, Garcia said.

“We tried to have some leniency here because we didn’t want to be so heavy handed in a make or break situation,” the commissioner said. “This program is really tightening that up.”

The City Council is expected to vote on the text amendment this month. The DOT will continue collecting public opinion on the future of the program through March.

If approved, the permanent program is expected to begin in early 2023, when the emergency program expires.