FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Baby Boomer Housing Deficit Coming?

October 29, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to Builder magazine, a new study by Epcon Franchising and Metrostudy found that “10 metro areas are expected to have a significant housing gap for baby boomers.” Furthermore, “52 percent of new-home buyers will be over 55 in the next five years.” Builder listed the top 10 markets that are expected to have a baby boomer housing deficit. The top three are Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and the District of Columbia. Read the court decision
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Can an Architect, Hired by an Owner, Be Sued by the General Contractor?

September 10, 2014 — Craig Martin – Construction Contractor Advisor
As is often the answer in this blog, maybe. And, it will likely depend on which state’s law is applied. Over the last few weeks, courts around the country have reached differing conclusions on whether a general contractor may sue an architect that it did not hire. Here’s the situation: The owner hires an architect to draft plans for a project. The project is then put out for bid and the owner hires a general contractor for the work. The general contractor and architect do not enter into a contract with each other. If, during construction, the general contractor finds fault with the plans, it may seek Request for Information and Change Orders, to shore up the perceived problems with the plans. Ultimately, the general contractor may sue the architect to recover damages it suffered in completing the project. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLP
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@ldmlaw.com

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Some Coastal Cities Are Sinking Even Faster Than Seas Are Rising

June 20, 2022 — Ditas B Lopez - Bloomberg
Rising seas have long been a threat to coastal cities. New research suggests that cities—particularly in Asia—are sinking as well, compounding the risks of frequent and severe flooding. In Karachi, land is sinking five times as fast as the sea level is rising, according to the study published this month in Geophysical Research Letters. Manila and Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second-largest city, are sinking at 10 times the rate of the rising waters. In China’s Tianjin, a coastal city about 150 kilometers southeast of Beijing, the ground is giving way at 20 times that speed. In those four cities alone, the phenomenon could affect roughly 59 million residents. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Ditas B Lopez, Bloomberg

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Eight Things You Need to Know About the AAA’s New Construction Arbitration Rules

August 19, 2015 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
I just finished a construction arbitration this past week, which also explains my sporadic posts as of late, sorry. Coincidentally, on July 1, 2015, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) implemented their newly revised Construction Industry Arbitration and Mediation Procedures. For those of you who follow our blog, you know I’m not a big fan of arbitration, which, from my experience, doesn’t deliver on its promise of better, faster, or cheaper, and ends up being pretty much the same thing as trial without the benefit of discovery, the rules of evidence, or appealability. The AAA is trying to change all of that though and in a news release announced that its new “Rules” “directly address preferences of users for a more streamlined, cost-effective, and tightly managed arbitration process that avoids the high costs of litigation.” Which makes you wonder whether they had to survey their “users” to come to this realization. But I digress. With the AAA’s new Rules come eight new changes, as follows: 1.Fast Track Procedures: Newly revised Rule F-1 now applies to two-party cases where no party’s claim or counterclaim exceeds $100,000. Under old Rule F-1 the monetary cap was $75,000. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

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Defects, Delays and Change Orders

November 01, 2021 — Jacob A. Epstein - Construction Executive
As every construction professional is aware, unexpected events and problems are guaranteed on every large project. Defects, delays and change orders are sure to arise, and depending on how they are dealt with and addressed at the time, they can either have minimal effects on the overall project or they can have drastic, long-term and often costly effects, including but not limited to thousands of dollars in legal fees, increases in insurance premiums and/or years of litigation down the road. There are many reasons why so many large construction projects end up in some type of litigation. Delay claims, construction contract disputes and construction defect lawsuits are so prevalent in certain parts of the country that certain judges designate specific time blocks in their courtrooms for construction cases only—just to deal with the large portions of their case dockets dealing with construction issues at the same time. Reprinted courtesy of Jacob A. Epstein, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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Mr. Epstein may be contacted at jepstein@haber.law

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Cities' Answer to Sprawl? Go Wild.

December 06, 2021 — Chris Malloy - Bloomberg
In a neighborhood of right-angled stone, stucco and brick buildings not far from Milan’s central train station, two thin towers stand out. Green and shaggy-edged, they look like they’re made of trees. In fact, they’re merely covered in trees — hundreds of them, growing up from the towers’ staggered balconies, along with 11,000 perennial and covering plants, and roughly 5,000 shrubs. The greenery-festooned towers, called the Bosco Verticale, or Vertical Forest, are residential buildings in a broader-than-usual sense. The 18- and 26-story structures are “a home for trees that also houses humans and birds,” according to the website of architect Stefano Boeri, who has built tree-covered buildings elsewhere and is working on similar projects in Antwerp, Belgium, and Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The Bosco Verticale is an example of urban rewilding, the growing global trend of introducing nature back into cities. There are consequences to the pace of today’s urban growth, which is the fastest in human history, including loss of biodiversity, urban heat islands, climate vulnerability, and human psychological changes. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that some 6,000 acres of open, undeveloped space become developed each day. Globally, past urban planning decisions like the prioritization of the car have given rise to cities that, but for scattered parks, tend to be divorced from nature. Rewilding aims to make cities better and more sustainable for people, plants, and animals. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Chris Malloy, Bloomberg

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“I Didn’t Sign That!” – Applicability of Waivers of Subrogation to Non-Signatory Third Parties

September 30, 2019 — Rahul Gogineni - The Subrogation Strategist
In Gables Construction v. Red Coats, 2019 Md. App. LEXIS 419, Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals considered whether a contractual waiver of subrogation in the prime contract for a construction project barred a third party – a fire watch vendor hired to guard the worksite – from pursuing a contribution claim against the general contractor. The court concluded that the general contractor could not rely on the waiver of subrogation clause to defeat the contribution claim of the vendor, who was not a party to the prime contract. As noted by the court, holding that a waiver of subrogation clause bars the contribution claims of an entity that was not a party to the contract would violate the intent of the Maryland Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act (UCATA). When dealing with claims involving construction projects, there may exist multiple contracts between various parties that contain waivers of subrogation. The enforceability of such waivers can be limited by several factors, including the jurisdiction of the loss, the language of the waiver and the parties to the contract. In Gables Construction, Upper Rock, Inc. (Upper Rock), the owner, contracted with a general contractor, Gables Construction (GCI) (hereinafter referred to as the “prime contract”), to construct an apartment complex. After someone stole a bobcat tractor from the jobsite, Gables Residential Services Incorporated (GRSI), GCI’s parent company, signed a vendor services agreement (VSA) with Red Coats to provide a fire watch and other security services for the project. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Rahul Gogineni, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Gogineni may be contacted at goginenir@whiteandwilliams.com

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Millennials Want Houses, Just Like Everybody Else

September 17, 2014 — Peter Coy – Bloomberg
The proportion of homeownership among young adults has fallen from a third to a quarter over the past half-century. But the idea that today’s millennials are allergic to deeds and mortgages is a myth, says a report based on a survey of more than 1,000 Americans aged 18-29 by the Demand Institute, a nonprofit jointly operated by the Conference Board and Nielsen (NLSN). “Like most myths, there is some truth here—but only some,” says the report’s introduction. The true part is that millennials are financially squeezed because of “graduating into a weak job market with growing student loan debt,” Jeremy Burbank, a Demand Institute vice president, said in a statement. The false part, the report says, is that millennials don’t want to own their homes. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Peter Coy, Bloomberg
Mr. Coy may be contacted at pcoy3@bloomberg.net

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