Construction picks back up, but its a different gig now
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - As Florida's housing market tanked seven years ago, construction worker David Rager saw jobs dry up. So he left construction, along with 2.3 million others nationwide during the economic downturn, and got a job installing traffic signals and street lights.
"I couldn't afford to sit at home for a month here and a month there," said Rager, 53.
Now Rager is back in construction, working with a crew on a custom-built home in Orlando, framing walls "and doing a little bit of everything." In the past four years, hundreds of thousands of workers have returned to construction, making it among the nation's fastest growing job sectors.
In the busiest markets, there aren't enough construction workers to keep up with the pace of building. In a recent survey of more than 900 contractors by Associated General Contractors of America, 83 percent said they were having trouble filling craft positions. The most difficult positions to fill were carpenters, roofers and equipment operators.
Given the amount of building going on, "it's going to be interesting because we're going to have a labor shortage here in South Florida," said Scott Moss, president of Moss & Associates, a South Florida-based construction firm with offices in California, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina and Hawaii.
Yet it's a measure of how hard the sector was hit that at it has regained just 900,000 of the 2.3 million jobs it lost from 2007 to 2011. The annual unemployment rate for construction workers stood at 9.8 percent last year, down steeply from the industry's 20.6 percent annual unemployment rate in 2010, but still significantly higher than last year's national annual unemployment rate of 6.2 percent. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State qualifies for electronic toll pilot value pricing program
Despite recent public hysteria over border tolls, Connecticut is well on its way to placing electronic tolls on state highways to pay for new express lanes and other improvements intended to reduce congestion.
The state has gained one of 15 slots offered by the Federal Highway Administration to participate in a pilot program implementing a new electronic toll system based on a concept called value pricing.
The federal value pricing pilot program bypasses federal prohibitions against new tolls on federal highways by offering an exemption which allows certain types of electronic tolls.
The tolls can be placed on designated express lanes, along borders and along specific sections of highway as long as the revenue generated is pumped back into infrastructure improvements.
Pricing can be varied throughout the day to encourage alternative routes of modes of transportation or travel schedule changes.
Opponents, however, are mobilizing to stop tolls. Over 500 people flooded the General Assembly's Transportation Committee's website last week with statements of opposition.
"The vast majority are communicating that they strongly oppose tolls," state Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, said.
"We have to do a better job of explaining this," said state Rep. Tony Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, and co-chairman of the General Assembly's transportation committee, which is considering a bill to authorize electronic tolls at the state's borders.
"You could pay $3 to go to the express lane or sit in traffic," Guerrera said. "I'm going to pay the $3."
Turning point
A study funded by the federal government to look at the state's current highway congestion and the potential benefit of electronic tolls is under way and is expected to be completed within a month. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State rejects East Hampton high school project
EAST HAMPTON >> The state has formally rejected the town’s request for renovate-as-new status for the high school renovation project.
The decision, contained in a Feb. 18 letter to Superintendent of Schools Diane Dugas, places $7 million in state funding for the $51 million project in jeopardy.
While hardly welcome, the action by state Department of Administrative Services was expected, members of the High School Building Committee acknowledged Thursday. DAS’s Office of School Facilities has concluded the town’s projected enrollment does not justify a school containing 118,923 square feet. DAS said the school exceeds the space/enrollment ratio by 20,637 square feet. “To qualify as as renovation, this provision requires the renovation project to cost less than building a new facility,” Deputy Commission Pasquale J. Salemi said in the letter to Dugas.
The state then says building a new 98,286-square-foot school “would cost $44,228,700, at $450 per s.f.,” Salemi said. Building committee members and contractors and engineers working on the project say the state’s estimated per square-foot building cost is far too low. With the recent revival of the national economy, these construction professionals say they are seeing project costs more in the $600-$700-square-foot range.
DAS officials have tacitly acknowledged the town cannot realistically reduce the project by 20,000 square feet. The DAS letter ends on a somewhat confusing note. Having all but dashed the town’s hopes, Salemi ends by saying, “We are also aware that other school districts have sought legislative relief from this statutory provision.”
And, in fact, that is what the town intends to do, even as it works to reduce the size of the school and the scope of the project. Brandishing a copy of the DAS letter, committee Chairwoman Sharon Smith said Thursday, “This is the letter we were hoping we wouldn’t get.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Hamden housing proposal has 393 units in 7 buildings on Mather Street
HAMDEN >> A large-scale housing development on Mather Street is going before the Planning and Zoning Commission this month, not long after another smaller development was approved just across the street. Summit Residential LLC of Fairfield is proposing a 393-unit development on 17 acres at 380 Mather St., across the street from a 77-unit development approved last fall and to be constructed by Regan Development.
Summit Residential wants to build seven buildings on the vacant land adjacent to the Farmington Canal Greenway linear trail, according to documents filed with the commission. There also will be “open squares and recreational spaces for children,” according to the application, as well as an “amenity building” with space that could be used by the residents. Developments for the site of the former gravel pit were approved in 2004 and 2009 but never went forward. The Inland Wetlands Commission has already approved the initial application.
The units will be serviced by public sewer and public water and will have gas heat. Fifteen of the 16.38 acres will be disturbed during construction, according to the application.
David Sullican, a traffic engineer at Milone and McBroom of Cheshire, conducted a traffic survey for Summit Residential that shows more than 6,000 cars currently use Mather Street every day. According to the traffic study, the development will generate 155 cars leaving the site and 40 coming in during the morning rush hour and 150 in and 80 out during the afternoon rush hour. The plans call for 596 parking spaces to be constructed for the 393 units.
“We find that new traffic associated with the proposed development can be accommodated at the site and the surrounding roadways,” Sullivan concludes.
It assumes the project, if approved, will open in 2017. The Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on the application on March 24 at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at Memorial Town Hall. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE