Local Law 47 of 2025: New Sidewalk Shed Colors, 12-Foot Height, and the Proposed Netting and Design Rules

Local Law 47 changed what sheds look like — two more DOB rules are still pending

Sidewalk sheds in New York City got a design overhaul starting in 2025, and it isn’t finished yet. Local Law 47 of 2025 — part of the same “Get Sheds Down” package that produced Local Law 48 and Local Law 51 — already changed two things that took effect on August 15, 2025: shed and fence colors, and minimum clear ceiling height. It also set two things in motion that are still working their way through DOB’s rulemaking process: a containment-netting alternative to full sheds, and a set of standardized, better-looking shed designs.

For a visual walkthrough, see our briefing slides: Your façade clock and your sidewalk shed. This post focuses specifically on what’s already law under LL47 and what’s still only proposed.

What’s already in effect: colors

Before LL47, Building Code Section 3307.6.4.11 (sheds) and Section 3307.7.9 (solid construction/demolition fences) allowed hunter green, with an exception for white in some cases. DOB’s industry notice on LL47 color requirements confirms the rule now in effect, as of August 15, 2025:

• Acceptable colors are hunter green, metallic gray, or white.
• For a shed or fence installed at an existing building that isn’t undergoing a full demolition or a “big alteration” under Administrative Code Section 28-101.4.5, the color may also match the building’s facade, trim, or cornice, or its sloped roof if visible from the street.
• The shed (or fence) must be one uniform color, with two carve-outs: metallic legs, beams, and cross bracing may stay metallic gray even on a differently colored shed, and parapet mesh may stay black regardless of the shed’s color. Black otherwise isn’t an allowed shed or fence color unless it’s matching a black building element.
• Where a shed and a solid fence are both installed at the same site, they have to use the same color scheme.
• The color doesn’t have to be paint — any treatment that directly applies an acceptable color is fine — and the requirement doesn’t apply to permitted artwork under Section 3307.11 or signage under Section 3301.9.

Sheds and fences with construction documents filed before August 15, 2025 that already complied with the old color rule don’t have to change anything, though they may be repainted to use the new options if the owner wants.

What’s already in effect: 12-foot clear ceiling height

DOB’s industry notice on the height requirement covers the other change that’s already law. Building Code Section 3307.6.4.7 used to require sidewalk sheds to provide a minimum clear ceiling height of 8 feet. For construction documents submitted on or after August 15, 2025, LL47 raises that minimum to 12 feet, unless the registered design professional (RDP) documents a site-specific reason to go lower.

A few details that matter for filing:

• Lighting fixtures that extend no more than 8 inches below the shed deck don’t count against the clear height measurement.
• Bracing perpendicular to the sidewalk, installed at least 8 feet above grade, and all bracing parallel to the sidewalk, are excluded from the measurement.
• Where a full 12-foot height would interfere with a building occupant’s required light or air — for example, decking placed directly in front of a window or air-conditioning unit, or legs/bracing blocking an intake or exhaust vent — the RDP can specify a height between 8 and 12 feet, but must include a note on the filed drawings documenting that determination and stating the actual minimum height to be installed.
• The shed also can’t block a required point of egress, at the subject building or an adjoining one where the shed is required to extend 5 or 20 feet past the property line under Section 3307.6.3.
• Sheds filed before August 15, 2025 don’t have to be modified to meet the new 12-foot minimum.

What’s still only proposed: containment netting as a shed alternative

This is the piece that’s easy to get ahead of yourself on. LL47 added a new Building Code section, 3307.6.2.1, directing DOB to “promulgate rules for the use of containment netting as an alternative to a sidewalk shed for areas with no public access or for use on a building exposure adjoining the exposure where façade work is to occur.” That’s a direction to write a rule — it is not, by itself, a rule that lets a contractor hang netting instead of building a shed.

DOB has acted on that direction: it published a proposed rule on containment netting that would set the conditions for optional use of netting along with design, material, installation, adjustment, maintenance, repair, and inspection requirements. As listed on NYC Rules, the rule’s status is Proposed, DOB held a public hearing on October 5, 2026, and that was also the deadline for public comment. As of this writing, the netting rule has not been adopted — there is no effective date yet, and the current Building Code requirement for a sidewalk shed (or another already- approved form of pedestrian protection) still applies until DOB finalizes and adopts the rule.

What’s still only proposed: six new Standard Design Packages

The other half of LL47 was a mandate for DOB to study sidewalk shed designs themselves — not just colors and height, but the whole pipe-and-plywood format — and report recommendations to the City Council Speaker. That study, developed with the engineering firm Arup and the design firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), produced six Standard Design Packages:

1. Air Shed
2. Baseline Shed
3. Flex Shed
4. Rigid Shed
5. Speed Shed
6. Wide Baseline Shed

DOB has proposed a rule to make these six designs available as Building-Code- compliant alternatives to a traditional shed, while keeping registered design professionals responsible for site-specific conditions. Per the Sidewalk Shed Designs rule page on NYC Rules, that rule’s status is also listed as Proposed, DOB (Agency: DOB) and the public comment period closed September 24, 2026. As with the netting rule, this one has not been adopted as of this writing — there’s no filing pathway yet that lets a project simply specify “Flex Shed” or “Air Shed” in place of a standard shed design under current Building Code requirements.

The practical read for a board or owner: nothing requires or currently allows a switch to netting or to one of the six new shed designs. Those are both DOB rules in progress, and either could change in response to comments before final adoption. Check NYC Rules for the current status before a project assumes either option is available for a filing — and don’t let a contractor tell you netting or a “new shed design” satisfies code today unless DOB has actually adopted the rule.

Where this fits with the rest of “Get Sheds Down”

LL47’s color and height changes apply the moment a shed’s construction documents are filed, which means they interact with everything else in the “Get Sheds Down” package: the 90-day permit terms and per-renewal work requirement under Local Law 48, the document- filing and completion deadlines under Local Law 51, and the FISP inspection cycle that puts many sheds up in the first place — covered in our FISP Cycle 10 guide. A shed that’s compliant on color and height but sitting on an expired or unrenewed permit, with no active repair work behind it, is still exposed to the Local Law 48/51 penalty structure regardless of what the shed looks like.

Altius CM scopes and runs the facade restoration work that gets a shed down — masonry and sealant repair, parapet work, roofing and waterproofing tie-ins, and the shed and scaffold sequencing that keeps a job moving through each permit renewal, with weekly progress documentation and drone facade surveys to support reporting along the way.

This is general information, not legal advice. If your building has a shed up — or is about to — talk to us about scope, sequencing, and how to keep it moving through its permit renewals. For a wider view of how we price and phase that kind of work, see our scope-of-work overview and our full service list.