[0:00] Start, ok, good morning, everyone. Welcome and join, thank you for joining us today. Happy new year and hope you had a very restful holiday. Tom won't be able to join us, so I'll be leading this today's burl service cabinet meeting, and.

[0:20] Pursuant to chapter four section 85 of the New York City charter. A meeting of the Bronx Bill Service cabinet will take place today, Wednesday, 7 January 2026 starting at 10:00 A.M. virtually on Webex. We will start roll call so that everyone can identify themselves, and then.

[0:43] We'll go into the agenda as well. Community board one, ok. Community board two? Community board three.

[1:00] Good morning or Happy New Year at a Ridder district Manager community for three.

[1:05] Happy New Year. Committee board four. Committee board five?

[1:15] Good morning golf. This is Ken Brown district Manager of human board five reporting and ready for duty.

[1:23] You can. Community board six? Community board seven?

[1:30] Good morning and Happy New Year. Harla Karela Karera district Manager from CV seven.

[1:37] Happy New Year. Community board eight?

[1:40] Good morning, everybody. Happy New Year, this is already Malcio community coordinator at Bronxvi Board eight. Farah will be joining shortly as well.

[1:49] Thank you so much. Committee board nine, committee board ten.

[1:59] Committee board eleven, committee board twelve.

[2:08] Okay, and I know there are several city agencies with us as long and also several elected offices let's go with the elected offices 1st council member in Cranacion. Council member Dinnerwitz. Council member Riley.

[2:37] Good morning, everybody. This is Andy Torcyo's representing council member Riley. Thank you, and.

[2:43] Andy council member a double, council member Sanchez Perina Sanchez. Council member Felice. Council member Stevens. Council Member Justin Sanchez, and the majority leader Farias.

[3:12] Good morning, everyone. Randy Melman representing council Member. Hi Randy.

[3:18] Thank you for being here and then the agency's DEP.

[3:26] Good morning. Thank you.

[3:31] Sanitation.

[3:35] Yeah, good morning, Robert Falcarroll Deputy chief Bronxborough.

[3:40] Department of buildings?

[3:44] Hi, good morning, Philip Barnold, Intergovernmental Liaison Department of Buildings.

[3:52] Alright, and I know you're, you have several colleagues on and you'll also be presenting DLT.

[4:00] Teresa Cruz Bronxborough Commissioner here. Hi everyone. Hello.

[4:06] Health department.

[4:09] Good morning, Kenneth Johnson Health Department of Community Affairs team.

[4:14] Thank you, parks department.

[4:22] I see Valerie on, but I'll say Valerie's on. Okay, is there anyone here that hasn't introduced themselves yet and would like to?

[4:40] Hi, Kenny Agostowe from the office of the Bronxborough president, committee boards unit, and happy with to be with you in this new year. Thanks.

[4:53] Any yes and we have several members of our community board unit on here as well. And with that, if you have any announcements from your agencies, we'll leave that for the end of the agenda, but 1st we would like to introduce the new.

[5:09] New Department of Building Sprongsburrl Commissioner Shintan Desai. Welcome to the Bronx Burl Service cabinet meeting. We would love to get introduction from you and your team and then followed by that we'll have Department of Transportation.

[5:29] Okay.

[5:30] Hi, good morning and thank you. My name Isai. I'm the commissioner for DOB starting 15 September, the prior commissioner retired. I have been with the department for eleven years now serving as the deputy.

[5:49] Commissioner happen as my last role, so i'm you know I'm here if anyone needs assistance, you can always reach out to my IGA folks, Philip and Nairobi who are on the call. And we've already had some discussions with few of the members here in the past two or three months, and I'm ready to serve and happy to serve in the brows. Thank you.

[6:17] Great, thank you so much and I do have, you know, just a general flag which I'll announce more later, at the end of agenda, but we've noticed a lot more, and I know this is more for FDMI, but of course, with the presence of more fires during the winter season, you know, that's a lot of interagency coordination, especially with DLP, making making sure, you know, in the event of a fire after fire.

[6:50] I know you make sure that you have your engineers on site to make sure the building either residential or commercial is structurally sound. Can you kind of walk us through if there are any tips or information that that would be helpful for our community board, folks here?

[7:11] That they could pass along, that would be helpful from department buildings perspective, with regard to, you know, fire safety or fire prevention.

[7:22] So we usually have periodic inspections of the units, but a lot of these fires, you know, are from what we've heard, it's a pre capsident sort of and in their older buildings, it does affect a lot of people in that particular building. Our engineers, the MPU which is the forensics unit is always on site when such fires happened they inspect the buildings for stability to make sure people can live, they vacate or or or seal of building that.

[7:56] As required. So if there's a particular concern for something that was let's say missed or something that after the inspection looks precarious, please reach out. We can always send inspectors out as soon as you know immediately to cover and to to get more safety for the people and surrounding.

[8:18] Right, we also issue what we call emergency declaration and immediate emergencies which have to be taken care of in 48 h with reference to sealing the property or fencing it up or or even in case where there are facade failures to have a shared or a scaffold. So all these precautions are taken, but again, you know, the community, whoever's out there, if they reach out, we will be active and we will assist the best way we can.

[8:49] Thank you so much. Does anyone here have any questions, for DOB? It doesn't necessarily have to be fire related, but if there are any flags that you want to bring up now, feel free to chime in.

[9:14] Okay, seeing none.

[9:18] I did have money in a.

[9:19] Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[9:22] Good morning all, thank you so much for that. So just recently how i've ever.

[9:27] But three.

[9:30] And, I've had something on my agenda for quite some, NO, not really that long, but for a couple of months and it's being addressed. It's regarding a easement, right? And I noticed though when I 1st received a complaint about, you know, cars being parked at within this easement, it's.

[9:52] Seems like everybody was like a little afraid of tackling the issue. But I was able to get some resolved, I was able to get some inspectors out to issue some summances regarding caused parked within the easement. I now would just like for you if you can, to just explain to me.

[10:12] I like I kind of understand, but I, I really want you to explain to me the conditions of a easement. Why do we have easements? And because I understand it to be its reason, the, the reason why we have easements is for utility or water access, right? Behind properties. However, this is.

[10:33] There's a large area where cars are being parked and stored and even being worked on, right? On this particular easement I I'm referring to. So, like, and and they like I said, they received summonses for having the cars parked there. So what do I have to do? I have to keep putting in three oh one complaints so the inspectors can keep going back out there until they move the cars because right now the cars are still there. They haven't moved any of the cars. So I just want you to be able to explain to me how do I move forward and really getting this easement issue resolved.

[11:13] So legal recreation between the property owners, right? It could be various things we already touched upon the two or three things like utilities, access, Sometimes they're landlock properties and people need fire egress access fire department access. So that happens sometimes it's it is based.

[11:34] On lightning air, right? If you have a property which is next door to you and you want, you want a sufficient setback to get lighten air into your property. So there are all kinds of different easements, we have a whole building bulletin on our, on our website. Okay. I think there are eight or twelve templates of easements, different kinds but there could be more specific.

[11:57] Okay. The other important thing to note is some of these streets that we see that are actually the one you're talking about when I reviewed with my inspectors, sometimes they are designated as streets, right? As unmapped streets, so that could be completely ABOT jurisdiction, but it is, it is part of the street so we had couple of incidents like that that we look into where somebody approved from the street.

[12:24] That's so we take action accordingly. The other important thing to note is all our violations are based on Latin block and the bin one. We can't go and give violations, though you saw the last email where you responded and the inspector said that we are waiting to pay three more three more bins in order to take more action, right? So that's how everything works for us to post anything, any, any.

[12:50] Whatever you call the unsafe violation etc. We need to have a property address which is the information. So that is being worked on. Now, as far as you're concerned with what is happening, right? We enforced it and we have we give them time, we.

[13:10] Can do reinspections if required or fail we give them failure to maintain or failure to comply, additional violations and then that's how the process goes and you follow up with the IGA folks, they are on top of it. They update me whenever required and I reach out to my inspections and we'll get people out there as required, ok?

[13:33] Okay, thank you. I just wanted to get clarity on that. So it basically it would be just failure to comply if I have to resubmit.

[13:40] Yeah.

[13:42] And complaints. Okay.

[13:43] Obviously unless you see something really like you know a fire or something happen in the car, that's a different issue. But in the general terms it will be a failure to comply to the already given.

[13:55] Gotcha. Okay, thank you so much.

[14:01] Okay.

[14:02] Thank you so much. And Edda if you you have any issues, we're also happy to help follow up with that as well. Any other questions to DOB? Okay, with that, thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome to stay.

[14:22] Day for the remainder of our birrl service cabinet meeting. But before I go to item number two, I do, want to recognize that Justin council member Justin Sanchez's chief of staff is on. Hello, do you wanna introduce.

[14:46] I'm not sure if you can hear me. You're on, we can't hear you, but.

[14:58] Can you hear me now? Yes. Alright, this is day one on my new computer. So forgive me. Hi everyone, my name Ishaw I am the chief of staff for newly elected council Member Justin Sanchez in the 17th district. Nice to meet you all.

[15:12] Welcome. We're glad to have you. And then I also wanna recognize CB six. Rafael has joined us and also a DCWP department for consumer work protection. Ryan, is there anyone else who joined?

[15:29] Just want to be able to recognize you. Okay, moving to agenda number two, thank you so much DLB, and our new DOB Bronx burl commissioner. Item number two for today is a presentation by the New York City Department of Transportation on a street design manual presented by cash Lamfer, who is the associate urban designer with the Department of Transportation city escapes, and franchises. Welcome. I think you should be able to share your screen if you have your presentation, but feel free to introduce yourself.

[16:03] Great yes, thank you very much for that introduction. Good morning and happy new year, everyone. I am going to share, if you haven't heard about it, I'm gonna share about the street design manual and give a little bit of an introduction on how you can use it. So let's see, I'm not used to.

[16:24] Webex, so forgive me a moment.

[16:38] We could see it.

[16:39] Okay, great, thanks for confirming ok great so I usually do a poll question to see who has and hasn't heard about the street design manual before today, but I'm having a little bit of trouble seeing like everyone at one time. So I'll just move right along. So why are we here? Again, I'm here to raise awareness about the street.

[17:08] Design manual and also give a little bit of an introduction on how you can use it so that you can go back to your, your respective neighborhoods and, and hopefully implement things in the street design manual in your communities. So 1st off, I'm gonna answer the question about why New York City needed a street design manual. So 1st, in a city like New York, it's crucial that design standards keep pace with the needs of.

[17:39] Our city as they are ever changing. The street design manual is a way that we ensure at DOT that there's a central location for DOT standards to be communicated broadly to the public and other city agencies. This all helps to provide consistent, high quality and people.

[17:59] Call centered designs across all of our projects.

[18:04] Secondly, the street design manual provides a shared language ensuring coherent street escapes throughout the city. So what that means is whether you're in the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn, the same principles apply so that the city feels connected and predictable for everyone.

[18:24] Next, the manual reflects our lessons learned throughout the decades, ensuring that we're always improving what is on our streets and also encouraging ongoing innovation and best practices. Like here, here's our, our parcel delivery that's.

[18:46] That's new and innovative.

[18:49] And then lastly, the street design manual serves as a useful tool that consolidates our guidance across our agencies. Numerous are on this call today. So instead of working in silos, the manual gives us one coordinated reference point for the manual and a language to develop.

[19:09] The projects. So next I'm gonna talk about who uses it. Our DOT staff and also other city agencies that are on this call rely heavily on the manual when designing projects, but it's also meant.

[19:28] To be for community boards and committees like yours when reviewing proposals and providing input on projects in your neighborhoods. It's also meant for design professionals and developers who need to meet city standards. We also cater and.

[19:47] Have a very accessible language in the, in the manual so that academics and other advocates who want to learn from this resource can take it and see how they can apply it. So it's really meant to be a practical tool so that we can all use it to hold projects to the highest standard.

[20:07] And push for designs that really fit our neighborhood contacts.

[20:14] A little bit of history about the street design manual and before we get into what's new in this latest edition. So the 1st edition of the street design manual was introduced in 2009. It was very aspirational in setting a foundation of what could be possible in New York City, so we.

[20:34] Looked to a lot of European cities at that point to see what we we could do in New York City. By 2013, the city council had passed legislation to ensure that the manual is updated every four years. And then and since 2020 the manual has been online and then now in 2025.

[20:58] In April, we published our latest 4th edition and that continues this evolution of the street design manual being a living document that responds to how New Yorkers actually use their streets.

[21:13] Next, I'll introduce a little bit about what's new. I really encourage you to visit the street design Manual website if you haven't already. We did a full revamp of the landing page and.

[21:30] Many different, chapters throughout the whole entire website have been updated with new content. Please refer to the street design manual, website for any of your latest resources. So, and it's also adaptable so that you can.

[21:47] View it on mobile and on a tablet of various screen sizes. And then for those of you that might be unfamiliar with the content pages within the street design manual, they're all.

[22:02] Similar as you go through the chapters from process geometry materials, lighting etc. They're all set up the same way and this is on the website as well so that you can see the different chapter structure here we have the table of contents and a navigation panel on both sides.

[22:22] Slides, and then we usually have a diagram that's helpful to call out the treatment that we're talking about. For this example, we have raised crosswalks, and then we give a little explanation about what a race crosswalk is. We have images of real world examples in the city and where they're located. And then we go through the main content, which is.

[22:48] Some benefits, considerations, specific things about design that needs to be emphasized and other kind of specifications about that. And so other things that are new content wise in the street design manual are.

[23:08] Recently outgoing commissioner Yadanas Rodriguez, his, big push was to get equity as a principal in the DOT street design manual, and so for the 4th edition, we.

[23:24] Successfully incorporated that into our principles. So this is one of the most important updates for this edition. And it really solidifies that equity has always been an emphasis for DOT.

[23:44] And we aim to create vibrant and connected and resilient public spaces that serve New Yorkers all throughout the city. In addition to the equity principle, we did some reorganization of the geometry chapters so that we have.

[24:01] A clear organization for policies and plannings if you're looking for that. We also have sections for pedestrian oriented designs. If you're focused on, you know, crossing intersections or sidewalks and things like that, you can go to these kind of sections here.

[24:20] And then we have mode specific designs. In addition to geometry, we have new key consideration sections. This information is very important for the understanding of the whole chapter, so I really recommend that you check out the key considerations for each chapter before really diving into.

[24:40] To the content pages just to get a general understanding of what the chapter is and then going into your content pages.

[24:49] We also have a fully revised activations chapter, if you're familiar with the street design manual, this chapter was called programming. We have switched the naming to activations and the emphasis of the chapter is how we can design our streets and public spaces.

[25:09] To better accommodate these activations. So that's pretty exciting. We have a lot of sizing of common activation components but which might be helpful in your planning of, open streets or any kind of other sort of programming that you wanna do. So you have these kind of common dimensions so you can figure out how many pop up tents can I get in this area? How much space do I need.

[25:33] Paid for a yoga class or something like that. So hopefully you can, you'll find this chapter helpful in your planning efforts. This is a new tool, the spec finder, it's a little bit for our like engineering nerves and designers that really like to geek out about that. It's a great way.

[25:55] To find the specifications and details that are held at DOT so that we can ensure that our standards are being upheld citywide. Lastly, for this last for this 4th edition we have brand new case studies that you can check out. This is a.

[26:15] Great way to go and see exactly what the process was to get this realized and see how you can mimic this process if you want to get a similar project in your neighborhood. So, it's a great way for communities to understand the process and.

[26:38] And inspire, you know, what that, what can be done in their community. And so with that, I thank you I hope that from this presentation, you've, you've learned about the street design manual and I hope that you're eager to go check it out. So thank you for your time, I really appreciate it and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[27:08] Thank you so much Cash, for, letting us know. I didn't know too much about it either. Does anyone have any questions about the manual? Go ahead. Yeah, thank you.

[27:25] So if we have an issue with our chatter schools and the increase of buses in our district, some of the buses are driving the wrong way and they have just created a little bit of traffic chaos in our community. If I wanted to go and read any of the sections, which one would you recommend? Cause we are planning to have individual meetings with chatter schools and.

[27:55] A lot of agencies bring to the table just so we can brainstorm what the issues are, why are the buses driving in the opposite direction of traffic to get into, to get into the schools to drop off children. So just, you know, just as we plan those meetings, what areas in the website would you recommend that we go and look into?

[28:20] That's interesting. I'm just as baffled by that behavior as you are, but I think a lot of where I would point you would be the geometry section. That's a lot of where we discuss how we lay out our right of way, which is our streets and sidewalks, and we do talk about turning movements and things like that. So with that issue, you know, I'm curious to think about.

[28:50] What issues might the bust drivers be having with the, with the current movements? Are those not manageable? We do have Derissa, the, the Bronxborough commissioner on here. I'm not sure if she might be able to assist a little bit of that. You said you had a meeting coming up? Hey Jerissa.

[29:13] Hey, yeah, I was just gonna add that we also have like an entire school safety team so if you send us the locations where this is happening, we're happy to have them take a look, and then they use the street design manual as a tool to kind of figure out what the best roadway geometry.

[29:28] Or if there's any other changes, maybe some curbside management that we need to do to kind of assist here, but happy to be helpful, just send me the locations.

[29:38] Thank you. Thank you.

[29:42] Yeah, Kenny.

[29:43] Just a quick question, in terms of studies for like traffic studies that that get implemented, does the street man design manual lend itself to such requests?

[30:00] No, so the street design manual I mean traffic studies definitely happen as a part of all of our, our redesign projects and street reconstructions. The street design manual is really the resource where it's meant as a communication tool so to provide our standards and guidance. So you can look to the street design manual to know how we're approaching projects, but it's not really a mechanism for like making requests or.

[30:33] Complaints or, you know, or communicating with DOT, like I would I would still recommend that you go to Dorissa's office and things like that. And, and the street design manual is mostly a tool so that you can look, if your community wants to, you know, shorten a crossing or something like that.

[30:53] And they don't have NO idea what a curb extension is. You know, you can use the street design manual as a tool to go to that curb extension page in the geometry chapter and really discuss how that, that tool is used to shorten crossings and make pedestrians safer at the intersections and and kind of use it as a guiding tool for educational purposes.

[31:17] Thank you, of course.

[31:20] And also I'll just add, I'm gonna put a link into the web form, which is like a way that any single person could submit any request related to DOT, so even if it's not in the Bronx but it's in the five barrels, you could submit through there and that's how like our agency internally will take a look at whatever request is made. And to Cash's point, it's kind of like our way.

[31:39] Way of explaining to the public in a way that's easily digestible, like what these things are. Sometimes we do presentations and people are like, can you explain again like what is this term? And that's kind of like our holy grail of like where you can go to get any explanation of what any of these items are.

[31:56] Thank you so much and welcome aboard, you guys. Yeah, thank you.

[32:01] I don't want to hold y'all up if there's NO other questions, I'll dip out, but I I do appreciate your time and happy new year. Have a great meeting.

[32:11] Thank you so much. Thank you so much DLT. I do want to recognize a few folks who've joined us, during the presentation that is CB nine has joined us. Gina Williams from hRA/DSS/DHS.

[32:31] Has joined us, the mayor's office, Alina Dow, welcome. Happy to see you. And also I see river Alexander legislative director from council Member Justin Sanchez's office. If I've missed you, please feel free feel free to introduce yourself in the chat if I've missed you.

[32:51] Okay, so on to the last agenda item announcements, does anyone have any announcements that they would like to do from the city agencies committee boards or elected offices?

[33:10] If not I will, make an announcement. 1st, I mentioned earlier in this meeting that our office is looking to do collaborations on hosting fire.

[33:28] Safety presentations. I know this is the season where fires are more and more prevalent, in the district. Bronx seems to have a fire almost every day, every other day. We just had a five alarm a few days ago this week and I know, you know.

[33:48] Community boards four nine and eleven have recent fires in the past few months, pretty significant ones as well. So I will be reaching out to, each community board. I'll work with our CB unit team, to kind of coordinate the best way, to host or you know if there's an existing meeting or event in which we can kind of have FDMI you know leverage.

[34:19] Your meeting to present as well, and that would be helpful especially you know with various populations that you all serve, we want to make sure we can tap into that and make sure you know it's never.

[34:35] It doesn't hurt to always get a reminder, a refresher, and even if it's an introductory to presentation to fire prevention and safety, it's always a good way to provide that information to the constituents who serve. Next we do have our next.

[34:55] The Bro board meeting on Monday, January 1210 AM at Bronxborough Hall. We'll send an email with the agenda items later this week. And also we have several upcoming events geo. I think you have the flyers. 1st, from our office.

[35:21] As we are hosting a twin parks for remembrance, a day of honor, of a reflection and honor this Friday 9 January. As you may recall, four years ago, we had a large fire that took many lives at Twins parks. Will will be hosting this remembrance.

[35:41] On the 1st floor of Bronzboro Hall. We will also email all these flyers for our events, so this is this coming Friday. Next we have our winter coat giveaway, which is next Thursday 15 January from 07:56 p.m.. Also in Burlhall and the Retanda.

[36:01] While supplies last, feel free to send it to your list serve about our co giveaway. And then next we also have a inter faith a celebration on MLK Junior Day, Monday 19 January.

[36:21] This will be hosted by the fellowship covenant Church at 07:20 Castle Hill Avenue. So feel free to also RSVP with our special events team with the QR code and email that's listed there. Again, we will send these flyers to you DLT, if we could get a copy of that presentation, we will also share with everyone here. I also see that there's a.

[36:53] A staff member from council Member Felicia's office, who also joins. I just want to recognize you as well. And then with that, we'll see you at the next pro board service cabinet and wishing you all happy and healthy new year. Thank you, everyone.

[37:15] Okay.

[37:15] Thank you. Thank you. Happy New Year.

[37:22] Happy New Year.

[37:29] Yeah.

Bronx Borough Service Cabinet Meeting 01/07/2026

Transcript