As another step to combat the coronavirus, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has declared a ban on “non-essential” construction in the state of NJ. The stoppage, announced this morning, goes into effect this Friday at 8:00 p.m. Construction will be permitted on hospitals, schools, transport, utilities and lower income housing, Murphy stated in a media briefing discussing the executive order.

Here is the full quote from a statement a made pertaining to essential contruction during Covid-19:

“All non-essential construction across the state will cease indefinitely effective 8 p.m. Friday. Exemptions to the shutdown include projects that are hospitals and schools, in our transportation and utility sector, the building of affordable housing, other individual housing sites that can adhere to strict limits on the number of workers on site at any given time, emergency repairs and work needed to safely secure a construction site, and other limited instances.”

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy

Besides settings such as schools, hospitals, infrastructure and manufacturing facilities which serve essential industries, the executive order lists the following as essential:

• Residential jobs which are exclusively designated as affordable housing;
• Projects already underway involving individual single-family houses, or a single apartment unit in which a person resides, with a building crew of fewer people. Including improvements to single-family homes such as solar panels;
• Projects already underway involving a residential unit for which a tenant or purchaser has already entered into a legally binding agreement to occupy the device with a certain date, and structure is necessary to ensure the unit’s availability by that date;
• Projects required for the delivery of essential social services, such as homeless shelters;
• Any job that’s arranged or contracted for by Federal, State, county, or municipal government, or any project that has to be completed to meet a deadline created by the Federal government;
• Any work on a non-essential construction project that is required to physically secure the site of the project, make sure the structural integrity of any structures on the site, abate any threats which could exist on the job site if the construction were to stay in its present state, ensure that the construction site and any buildings are protected while work stoppage occurs.
• Any emergency repairs necessary to guarantee the health and safety of occupants.

The executive order goes on to outline requirements for social distancing on key jobsites, and what to do when a worker is infected.

The Northeast Spa and Pool Association will be looking for additional clarity. How this will impact New Jersey Pool Contractors at the start of the pool building season remains to be seen. The local state government is looking to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19 virus by halting construction. It remains to be seen whether this includes Pool Contractors. One thing is for certain, if they decide Pool Construction is non-essential this will definitely have economic trickle down effects in local communities.

We will update this article when the NSPA makes it’s official announcement as to how this work stoppage effects pool contractors.

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