Another large segment of the South Fork’s work force was idled this week after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday halted all nonessential construction during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Construction was previously defined broadly as an essential business in the governor’s March 20 New York State on PAUSE executive order aimed at reducing the spread of the virus. Among other things, that order, now extended through April 15, limited all public gatherings of any size and required that all nonessential businesses close and have employees work from home. The revised rules on construction more strictly define what is and what is not considered essential and include fines of up to $10,000 per violation for those who do not heed the order.
“All nonessential construction must shut down except emergency construction (e.g., a project necessary to protect health and safety of the occupants, or to continue a project if it would be unsafe to allow it to remain undone until it is safe to shut the site),” according to the revised guidance. Essential construction including roads, bridges, transit facilities, utilities, hospitals or health care facilities, affordable housing, and homeless shelters may continue.
Sites where it is impossible to “maintain distance and safety best practices must close, and enforcement will be provided by the state in coordination with the city/local governments,” according to the revised guidance.
The revision followed last Thursday’s letter from East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to Governor Cuomo and Howard Zucker, the State Health Department’s commissioner, asking that they reconsider designating construction an essential business.
“Many of our residents in East Hampton are extremely alarmed to see ‘business as usual’ taking place at construction sites throughout the town,” Mr. Van Scoyoc wrote. “We have a large number of workers, traveling together in work trucks and vans, coming into East Hampton each day from other towns. On job sites, they are working in groups, side by side, in close proximity without protective gear.”
Based on observation of landscape and construction vehicles traveling into East Hampton on Thursday morning, approximately 192 such vehicles, many with at least two workers together in the vehicle, were entering the town per hour, Mr. Van Scoyoc wrote, noting that Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has a total of eight intensive care unit beds.
Active construction sites “present a prime opportunity to spread the coronavirus . . . the very scenario that you have been warning against,” the supervisor wrote. East Hampton and other towns on the East End “are areas of great concern regarding a large outbreak of coronavirus, as many people have come here from New York City to reside in their second homes or move into rentals to get out of the city.” Because of the influx of New York City residents, “many of whom could well be carriers of the disease, and the constant influx and close proximity of construction workers, I fear for the health and well-being of my community,” he wrote.
The governor’s revision idled a large number of workers, deepening the pandemic’s economic toll. “We are at a stop for now,” Beni Shoshi of Shoshi Builders in East Hampton said on Tuesday. “We’re taking it day to day.” Seven projects were halted with the governor’s revised order, Mr. Shoshi said, and between employees and subcontractors, at least 30 workers have been affected.
Scott Braddick, a builder, project manager, and founder of Montauk Precision Home Improvement Services, said that a dozen projects were idled as a result of the revision. He said that he supports the construction halt, given the public health emergency, but noted that this is typically his busiest time of the year. “It’s a mess,” he said on Monday. “There’s 40 guys not working that I personally know of and keep employed,” among them electricians, plumbers, framers, and roofers.
Mr. Braddick said that even before Friday’s revision, the influx of second-home owners precluded work, given the importance of social distancing. “Anybody that’s been in the house, I haven’t been to those in three weeks. I said, ‘If you’re here, we’re not coming, that’s that.’ There are a lot of very disappointed people -- bathrooms, kitchen renovations are incomplete. But I would rather have an incomplete project than anyone getting sick.”
The revision to the governor’s order does not apply to a single worker who is the sole employee on a job site. Mr. Shoshi said that that allows for some late-stage project components like hardware installation or touch-up work, “but that’s it for now.” He is working in his office, he said, “preparing for hopefully getting started in a couple of weeks. I want to try to plan ahead and not fall back, because I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of things backed up, once we do get moving.”