Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo revised an executive order on Friday to halt all nonessential construction during the coronavirus pandemic.
Construction was previously defined broadly as an essential business in the governor’s March 20 New York State on PAUSE executive order. The new rule more strictly defines what is and what is not considered essential.
“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 to remain undone until it is safe to shut the site),” according to the revised guidance on the executive order. Essential construction including roads, bridges, transit facilities, utilities, hospitals or health care facilities, affordable housing, and homeless shelters may continue.
“Sites that cannot maintain distance and safety best practices must close, and enforcement will be provided by the state in coordination with the city/local governments,” including fines of up to $10,000 per violation, according to the revised guidance.
The revision follows Thursday’s letter from East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc to Governor Cuomo and Howard Zucker, the State Health Department commissioner, asking that they reconsider designating all construction as essential.
“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 observations 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.” With 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.”