March 30 Update on COVID-19 (Coronavirus) & Construction

MARCH 30 UPDATE on CONSTRUCTION IN AUSTIN

Both City and County Release Additional Guidance for Construction

Today the City of Austin Development Services Department (DSD) issued Supplemental Guidance for the Construction Industry. This document comes almost a week after the City's initial Stay Home - Work Safe Order and subsequent Guidance for the Construction Industry were released on March 24.

Today's document, we believe, does not make any changes to City policy about what can be or can't be built during the pandemic. (As previously reported, public work is continuing, multi-family and condo jobsites are shutting down unless tied to affordable housing, and construction related to an "essential service" is continuing,)

Key points from today's City of Austin Supplemental Guidance document you need to know:

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS to DETERMINE "ESSENTIAL" PROJECTS - The City has created an administrative process, managed by the City's Development Services Department, to make determinations regarding construction under the Order. The administrative process may be used to: (1) determine whether a construction project may continue to operate , and (2) if the construction project cannot continue to operate, determine if a wind down period allowing limited continuation of construction work is necessary to mitigate a risk to persons or infrastructure.
HEALTH/SAFETY REQUIREMENTS - The "Site Manager" is responsible for implementing a series of health requirements (such as a pre-screening of worker health conditions before starting work, eliminating water coolers for group use, regular disinfecting of tools and shared touchpoints etc....) similar to what Dallas County enacted beginning today.

Again, this DSD Guidance issued today can be found here and there is much more information in it that may be applicable to your work.

Meanwhile, Travis County issued their own Guidance for the Construction Industry document that seeks to curtail construction even further than the City. This guidance comes as a follow-up to the County Stay Home Order released March 24. Specifically, the County states:

"For purposes of clarification, 'construction in support' refers to necessary repairs and maintenance for the essential business to safely remain open and operational."

That County language limits construction for essential projects to only repair/maintenance work, whereas the City language allows new construction for essential projects as well. The County document includes a chart to list what construction is allowable under their Order and what is not.

At this time, the Austin AGC working with legal experts along with City and County officials to help clarify this situation and determine if the County language only applies to work outside the Austin city limits or if it applies to all construction within the County. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, commercial construction continues this week in every other major Texas city, namely Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

LEGAL GUIDANCE

As always, we are fortunate that our industry partners in the legal world are regularly writing and sharing expert guidance for contractors during this challenging time. We strongly encourage you to check the websites of the construction law firms below for the latest information they provide.

Andrews Myers
Allensworth and Porter

Cokinos|Young

The Chapman Firm

Peckar & Abramson

Sincerely,

Phil Thoden

President and CEO

Austin Chapter AGC

512.442.7887

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