Why is private sector construction still working in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is happening everywhere. It isn’t fair to the workers and their families.

You are spoiled and out of touch. I work in construction. The workers DESPERATELY want to work. Their families live a paycheck or two away from disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Builders say shutting down a job site is less like shuttering a restaurant than firing the chef while the roast is in the oven. If you abandoned a project halfway, materials like insulation and exposed wiring degrade in the elements. “There’s a sense that a 100-year-old building will deteriorate but continue to perform its job,” said Ehren Gresehover, a structural engineer in New York. “But when you start opening things up, start demo’ing a little slab, you might unbrace a column, and that column has temporary shoring, or perhaps it’s only temporary braced, and that’s less stable.” What’s safe for a weekend might not be safe for several months unattended. Once a project gets underway, developers say, the timeline is tight. Skilled workers are in high demand. “Construction is like a train,” one Chicago developer told me. “If you stop a welder, it could take two months to get them back on site.” Delays can break contracts, they say, triggering expensive legal fights or jeopardizing the leases that future tenants have signed.

No one wants to leave an open building to rot in the spring rain. Close it up. Finish what you need to do to stabilize it. Keep working if the building is a new hospital or something else essential, But don’t start something new and don’t pretend that because SOME construction is essential, then ALL construction is essential. Get as many people off the site as possible.

Try this: Dentists are essential, we can all agree. But it is wise to close dental practices to normal routines right now because they are performing needlessly risky cleanings that can wait. If a patient has an urgent issue, they call and set an appointment to get it taken care of.

Right now, most construction is continuing its merry way as if there is no risk and all is normal. But of course, all is not normal. Workers are at unnecessary risk.

[Anonymous]

On what planet is the mayor living when she has closed all parks and playgrounds yet yet has decided that condo and retail construction is “essential”?

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of construction work is only essential from an economic standpoint. However, given that shelter is an essential need, one could argue that continuing to supply the continued housing needs of a community makes housing projects more essential than nonresidential projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of construction work is only essential from an economic standpoint. However, given that shelter is an essential need, one could argue that continuing to supply the continued housing needs of a community makes housing projects more essential than nonresidential projects.[/quote

These market rate projects are all built on spec. And DC’s Chief Financial Officer estimates that the city’s population is increasing slowly if at all (contradicting the office of planning’s irrationally exuberant talking points). Not exactly justifying large residential and mixed use projects as “essential” or emergency activity.

[Anonymous]

Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

You act as if the Mayor is all powerful. You speak as though she and she alone has the ability to shut down construction projects. Ask yourself this finger-pointer... Why haven't the construction workers themselves simply put their foot down and refused to continue these nonessential projects? Do you not think that their voices hold any significance? Why haven't their labor unions raised exercised their authority in protest against being forced to endure unsafe working conditions and continue building frivolous flats in the middle of a pandemic? Do you not think that their influence carries any weight? Tell us critic, how has the Mayor in her preeminence managed to silence both the workers and the labor unions?

[Anonymous]

As the economy slows I expect the problem to largely solve itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

You act as if the Mayor is all powerful. You speak as though she and she alone has the ability to shut down construction projects. Ask yourself this finger-pointer... Why haven't the construction workers themselves simply put their foot down and refused to continue these nonessential projects? Do you not think that their voices hold any significance? Why haven't their labor unions raised exercised their authority in protest against being forced to endure unsafe working conditions and continue building frivolous flats in the middle of a pandemic? Do you not think that their influence carries any weight? Tell us critic, how has the Mayor in her preeminence managed to silence both the workers and the labor unions?

As people start to get sick, they will. Read up on what has happened in NY. But do we need to wait for them to get so frightened that they stop coming to work? Which projects are worth getting sick or dying for?

[Anonymous]

A lot of people are just dying to get their Wegmans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

You act as if the Mayor is all powerful. You speak as though she and she alone has the ability to shut down construction projects. Ask yourself this finger-pointer... Why haven't the construction workers themselves simply put their foot down and refused to continue these nonessential projects? Do you not think that their voices hold any significance? Why haven't their labor unions raised exercised their authority in protest against being forced to endure unsafe working conditions and continue building frivolous flats in the middle of a pandemic? Do you not think that their influence carries any weight? Tell us critic, how has the Mayor in her preeminence managed to silence both the workers and the labor unions?

As people start to get sick, they will. Read up on what has happened in NY. But do we need to wait for them to get so frightened that they stop coming to work? Which projects are worth getting sick or dying for?

I do not believe your response addresses the actual query posed by the previous poster with regard to how the purportedly omnipotent Mayor has come to wield so much power over these other ordinarily equally powerful parties. Did you wish to address this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

You act as if the Mayor is all powerful. You speak as though she and she alone has the ability to shut down construction projects. Ask yourself this finger-pointer... Why haven't the construction workers themselves simply put their foot down and refused to continue these nonessential projects? Do you not think that their voices hold any significance? Why haven't their labor unions raised exercised their authority in protest against being forced to endure unsafe working conditions and continue building frivolous flats in the middle of a pandemic? Do you not think that their influence carries any weight? Tell us critic, how has the Mayor in her preeminence managed to silence both the workers and the labor unions?

As people start to get sick, they will. Read up on what has happened in NY. But do we need to wait for them to get so frightened that they stop coming to work? Which projects are worth getting sick or dying for?

I do not believe your response addresses the actual query posed by the previous poster with regard to how the purportedly omnipotent Mayor has come to wield so much power over these other ordinarily equally powerful parties. Did you wish to address this?

It’s the developers who are the powerful ones. Bowser is just their paid Hoe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, having unfinished buildings rotting and collapsing on people will definitely help our cause.

Oh, and the workers will go bankrupt if they can’t work.

But keep up the armchair opining.

And the mayor (or at least her perpetual campaign cash operation) will go bankrupt if the big developers are feeling less generous in their, uh, civic appreciation.

You act as if the Mayor is all powerful. You speak as though she and she alone has the ability to shut down construction projects. Ask yourself this finger-pointer... Why haven't the construction workers themselves simply put their foot down and refused to continue these nonessential projects? Do you not think that their voices hold any significance? Why haven't their labor unions raised exercised their authority in protest against being forced to endure unsafe working conditions and continue building frivolous flats in the middle of a pandemic? Do you not think that their influence carries any weight? Tell us critic, how has the Mayor in her preeminence managed to silence both the workers and the labor unions?

As people start to get sick, they will. Read up on what has happened in NY. But do we need to wait for them to get so frightened that they stop coming to work? Which projects are worth getting sick or dying for?

I do not believe your response addresses the actual query posed by the previous poster with regard to how the purportedly omnipotent Mayor has come to wield so much power over these other ordinarily equally powerful parties. Did you wish to address this?

It’s the developers who are the powerful ones. Bowser is just their paid Hoe.

Is it not atypical for a “paid hoe” to have power? In continuing with the metaphorical example you used would it not be the procurers, mostly known in postmodern times as pimps, who hold the power and not the prostitutes? And if that is the case would it not be prudent for you to equally direct your annoyance and antipathy towards the procurers if not more even more so than the Mayor? I am confused why you choose to hold a powerless pawn by your own admission fully accountable and let your true adversary get off scot free with no reprimand? Would not such ill-placed resentment only serve to allow the this corruption to continue?