Landlords want NYC to pay them for neighbors scaffolding that plagues sidewalks in endless Whack-a-mole

Scaffolding-sick landlords think they shouldn’t have to deal with negligent neighbors’ sidewalk sheds stretching onto the property — unless the city starts paying up.Four Big Apple landlords slapped City Hall with a class-action suit that says their Fifth Amendment rights have been trampled on when scaffolding from neighboring building twists onto their property.The Fifth Amendment says the government has to pay private property owners when their land is taken for public use — but the city doesn’t pay a cent to property owners put out by the ongoing scaffolding scourage.“The City of New York systematically engages in a taking of property from thousands of New Yorkers,” the lawsuit alleges.“Many thousands of blameless neighbors have experienced and continue to experience infringement of their property rights because of the City’s laws and rules and because of sidewalk sheds,” the lawsuit, filed on March 27 by Boies Schiller Flexner and Messing & Spector, read.City law requires scaffolding sheds be erected over the sidewalk outside buildings where inspectors find flaws that are determined to be hazards for pedestrians below.But safety requirements mean the sheds sometimes extend beyond the damaged property onto neighboring buildings — forcing some landlords to deal with sheds even though they haven’t received any violations.“The intrusion lasts, on average, for well over a year, and many of these sheds remain in place for multiple years, partly because it is often cheaper for owners of at-risk properties to maintain sheds rather than to efficiently complete repairs that the City requires,” the lawsuit alleges.The sheds are not only ugly — but they drive away tenants, block light and attract vermin, the landlords said.Properties flagged in the lawsuit included several residential buildings that had had their stoops commandeered to extend scaffolding, and were left shrouded in darkness because of the work on neighboring sites.The plaint...