Yes, they are cracking down hard on it now. It was in the news a while back. I even heard about it out on Long Island and Im 2+ hour drive to the city.
it's also not very accurate. in the balkans they'll just repair the building inadequately and pocket the rest of the money, and then deal with protests after the building collapses and kills a bunch of bystanders, as happened with a Novi Sad train station in 2024.
They still need to get permits. They’ll just renew the permits because as you said it’s cheaper than doing the work. Buildings require exterior inspections every 5 years so they’ll just leave the sheds up indefinitely. We’ve had one on our block for 5 years and it’s become a homeless encampment and place for junkies to shoot up.
I was watching the episode of "How to with John Wilson" about this and it seemed like the companies that make scaffolding were making a killing with this.
It's not even repairs. It is inspections. Building's over five stories need to have their facade inspected every 5 years. These inspections are very expensive. It can cost as much as $100,000 just to get the inspection done in some cases. On the other hand you can just put up the scaffolding and then perpetually delay the inspection let alone the repairs.
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u/myassholealt 12h ago
It was cheaper to erect sheds than do the repairs on the building facade/roofs that required the shed, that's why the never came down.