Mayor Announces Changes to City Construction Projects
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In an effort to fight off the delays and cost overruns that have plagued public works projects in recent years, Mayor Bloomberg is launching a series of wide-ranging reforms for city-led construction ventures.
“A lot of construction companies just don’t want to work with the city government because there’s a reputation of being slow to pay for change orders and quick to impose onerous requirements,” the mayor said yesterday at a press conference at City Hall.
The initiative, which affects construction of projects such as parks, water mains, and sewers, consists of five points, three of which relate directly to delays.
The city will pay compensation to contractors whose public works projects are delayed by city mistakes, and the processing time for change orders — changes in plans stemming from unforeseen problems — will be cut in half, to 150 days from 300. The city also will try to estimate more accurately the cost of projects before they are given budget approval.
Additionally, the city plans to keep a central data bank of all information about construction bids and to build on recent changes in the state Legislature that allow the city to preapprove contractors and give more construction projects to single contractors.
The president of the New York Building Congress, which represents several leading construction firms, Richard Anderson, said he welcomed the initiative. “City government needs to find ways to make projects more contractor-friendly,” he said.
While housing values have dropped throughout much of the country, values in many parts of the city have held steady. Mr. Bloomberg said the “perpetual motion” of the recent building boom could not last forever but that rising costs are making construction projects more and more difficult to complete.
The mayor also pointed to today’s “dire” economic climate as a reason for the reforms. “The current economic downturn has been and will continue to be difficult for New York City,” he said. “It has forced us to do something that is a very good practice for any organization: to look at our costs and see where we can do things better and more efficiently.”
Even if the city cannot stop inflation, it can help cut unnecessary costs, Mr. Anderson said. “Getting a grip on rising construction costs doesn’t have any one solution,” he said. “But we want government to be aware of what it can do.”
The New York Building Congress is expected to issue a report on the inflation of construction costs tomorrow.