Norfolk, VA Building Safety: Scaffold & Sidewalk Shed (2026)

Section 42-28 requires every person who uses scaffolding or other apparatus suspended over city streets in the business of cleaning buildings to register with the building official, giving name, residence and place of business, and to update that registration whenever the business relocates within the city. Registrants must also post a $5,000 corporate surety bond, approved by the city attorney, to indemnify the city against loss or damage from the suspended scaffolding or apparatus; § 2-10 allows liability insurance to substitute for that indemnity bond.

The same article addresses two related scaffold-adjacent hazards. Section 42-29 prohibits cleaning any building located on a public street by the sand-blast method unless the staging and work area are fully enclosed to catch all sand and dust and keep it from blowing into the street or adjacent buildings, and makes a violation a Class 3 misdemeanor. Section 42-30 requires anyone painting the side of a building abutting a public street to first protect the sides and bottom of the platform or scaffolding with canvas or similar material so paint cannot drip or fall on pedestrians below.

Together these three sections form Norfolk's street-facing scaffold safety framework: registration and bonding for the underlying equipment, enclosure requirements for abrasive cleaning methods, and drip protection for painting work, all administered through the building official and enforceable independent of any separate state building-code permit for the scaffold structure itself.