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The Sanitation Department wants to more than double the fine—from $100 to $250—for owners with empty lots that create neighborhood eyesores. The number of neglected lots cleaned by the city directly has plunged in recent years, thanks to budget cuts under former Mayor Adams.
The city is looking to hike penalties on owners of vacant lots who fail to keep them clean, citing a “raise in complaints” about dirty lots and adjacent sidewalks, according to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY).
The agency wants to more than double the fine—from $100 to $250—for owners with empty lots that create neighborhood eyesores, saying in a public notification Tuesday that the current penalty isn’t “enough of a deterrent” to get people to clean up their vacant spaces.
DSNY will hold a virtual public hearing on the proposed change on Oct. 30.
While owners are required by law to keep their properties and surrounding areas clean of debris, the Sanitation Department's Lot Cleaning Unit can intervene and clean up the space at the owner's expense.The city received 2,410 such requests in the most recent fiscal year that ended in June, according to the latest Mayor's Management Report, but only cleaned up 257 of them—what DSNY attributed to deep funding and staffing cuts under former Mayor Eric Adams.
"This is certainly a place where the prior administration's very, very steep cuts to Sanitation have had a lasting impact," DSNY Commissioner Gregory Anderson testified at a City Council hearing in June.
The department's Lot Cleaning Unit was cut from 94 staffers to just 15 at the time, and a backlog of 1,100 lots, he added. "We are lucky to have those 15, because there was a time a little over a year ago where we had zero dedicated staff," Anderson told lawmakers.
The city's most recent budget deal, the first passed under the new Mamdani administration, included $820,000 for the Lot Cleaning Unit and allocates additional money over the next several years, growing its budget to $1.6 million by 2028-2029.
A DSNY spokesperson said the agency hired nine additional workers since June, bringing the unit's current headcount to 24.
In the meantime, the department hopes increased enforcement will help.
"I think we have to be more aggressive with that," Anderson told the City Council in June. "We have to hold these property owners accountable, especially because these properties are contributing zero value whatsoever to our social life, to housing, to communities. They're just an eyesore."
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