The narrow streets around 20 Exchange Pl. — a popular location for movie and TV shoots — make film crews a particular nuisance to some residents and shop owners, leading to calls for tighter regulation, such as a bill cosponsored by Downtown’s Councilmember Margaret Chin.
BY YANNIC RACK |
Lights, camera… action — on a long-standing Downtown quality-of-life issue.
A bill aiming to get a clearer picture on the film and TV shoots that regularly shut down streets in the Financial District has been stalled in the Council because of industry opposition — but now the legislator who proposed it is cutting the script in the hope that the measure might pass after all.
Intro. 84, proposed and then tabled by Brooklyn Councilmember Stephen Levin, would require the city to disclose more frequently when and where productions take place, as well as the companies behind them.
Downtown residents, whose streets are often clogged by camera-wielding film crews, think the idea is worthy of an Oscar.
“Anything that sheds more light on this industry and makes it more transparent is good,” said Community Board 1 chairwoman and Fidi resident Catherine McVay Hughes. “We know it’s an important industry and brings a lot of business to New York, but it’s difficult for the community.”
The original bill would have mandated the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment collect detailed data on local spending by film crews to be included in annual reports quantifying the industry’s economic impact, but Levin now plans to amend the language to require only monthly reports of film and television production permits and better community notification.
“The focus is going to be more on the reporting, and less on the economic impact. That’s really what we’ve been hearing from residents — frustration when streets are closed up and parking pots are not there anymore,” said Levin spokesman Ed Paulino.
The bill would require the timely disclosure of film locations, shooting durations, the impact on on-street parking and the identity of the company producing the shoot.
“This is about being responsible to the public,” Levin said.
The renewed push for the legislation comes only weeks into former CB1 chairwoman Julie Menin’s tenure as commissioner of the agency, which gives out permits for production companies.
Downtown Councilmember Margaret Chin, who co-sponsored the bill, said she hoped to meet the new commissioner soon to discuss the measure — especially since Lower Manhattan is such a hot-spot for filming activity.
“This important piece of legislation is vital for our city to effectively track the number of film and TV shoots that are having an increasingly negative impact on the quality of life of residents — particularly those living along narrow, cavernous streets in Lower Manhattan,” she said.
The Mayor’s Office wouldn’t comment on the amended legislation since it isn’t officially introduced yet, but Menin, who left the community board in 2012, said that her agency was already keeping a closer eye on productions anyway.
“The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment aims to strike a balance between community needs and production requests, and our staff works with community groups and local elected officials, including City Council members, to ensure minimal impact to neighborhoods,” she said. “Our staff monitors production details on a daily basis, keeping track of each neighborhood while identifying areas that may need a temporary hiatus from filming.”
The television and film industry employs around 130,000 New Yorkers and contributes nearly $9 billion to the city annually, according to the Mayor’s Office.
The bill’s opponents — which include industry union members, small-business owners and New York-based studio heads — heavily protested against it during a Council hearing last year.
They say that collecting spending figures from a production’s hundred-plus employees on a daily basis is impractical and unnecessary.
“This legislation is very shortsighted,” Silvercup Studios CEO Alan Suna told Crain’s New York recently. “They want a microscopic view on an important macroscopic industry that benefits this city tremendously.”
Of the 1,142 Street Activity Permit applications CB1 received from January 2015 to the present, almost half were for shooting permits, said Diana Switaj, the board’s planning director — although she noted that those were only the shoots that require a street activity permit, most likely for staging, and might therefore not even represent the full total.
The applications come to the board only for notification, and CB1 doesn’t have any input on the permitting process.
Fidi residents, who have to deal with the onslaught of shoots on a weekly basis, have protested the flood of film crews in the past — partly because community notification is usually only given in the form of parking notices.
“That’s how most people find out about it,” said Patrick Kennell, a resident who recently started the Financial District Neighborhood Association to address such quality-of-life issues.
Kennell said the industry is generally welcome Downtown because of its positive economic impact — but more information and advance notice about film shoots would go a long way to ease residents’ concerns about individual productions.
“The community shouldn’t find out when they walk down the street and can’t get through because the way is blocked by a film crew,” Kennell said. “I don’t think the bill is asking that much.”
He added that an increase in transparency regarding the companies’ economic data might even sway some of the more critical denizens of the neighborhood.
“I think providing that info [on money spent locally] will actually show the community how good these shoots are for the neighborhood,” he said.
