The 1992 Toxic Substances Control Act gave the EPA 18 months
to draw up a set of lead-safe work rules for contractors who
work in structures that may contain lead paint. On March 31 of
this year, the rules were finally published.
The new Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule requires
all remodelers working on residential or "child-occupied"
commercial buildings that may contain lead-based paint to
receive certified lead-safety training. It also spells out
mandatory procedures for sealing work areas against dust,
performing final job-site cleanup, and recordkeeping.
According to NAHB analyst Matt Watkins — who's been
closely following the issue — the new rules will be
phased in over a three-year period. During the first year, the
EPA will work with the industry to develop approved lead-safety
training programs. Remodelers who plan to continue to work on
buildings that may contain lead must complete the required
training by the end of the second year — March
2010.
By mid-2010, contractors will be required to follow the new
work rules on all projects involving homes built before 1960,
and the EPA will presumably begin to enforce compliance with
spot checks of job sites and company recordkeeping. A year
later, in 2011, that requirement will be extended to include
all structures built before 1978.
Watkins notes that the new rules contain many "uncertainties
and gray areas subject to interpretation." For example, when
they're fully implemented they'll require the use of lead-safe
practices on all rental housing — with an exemption
for owner-occupied housing: If the homeowner signs a document
stating that no child aged six or under lives on the premises,
a contractor can waive the lead-safe practices. "But what
happens if a five-year-old shows up in the house once the job
is under way?" Watkins asks. "Whose problem is it that the
homeowner lied?"
Another key question concerns the level of training necessary
for those actually present on the job site. The rules make it
clear that workers don't need formal lead-safety training if
they're working under the direction of a trained person
— but whether the trained person must be on the site
continuously or can move from place to place as needed to
manage multiple jobs at the same time is less clear. —
Jon Vara
Offcuts
• An affordable and purportedly zero-carbon home has
been unveiled by a British consortium of green builders,
reports The Independent, a London newspaper. The superinsulated
passive-solar "ruralZED" house is based on a prefabricated
timber frame that comes as a flat-pack kit — "a bit
like a sofa from Ikea," according to the project architect.
Designed for off-the-grid living, the three-bedroom structure
has photovoltaic roof panels and a wood-chip-fired boiler for
backup heat. Not counting land or site work, it can be erected
for the equivalent of about $305,000, say its creators.
• Today's
suburban McMansions may be tomorrow's slums, says developer and
land-use planner Christopher B. Leinberger. Writing in the
March 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Leinberger argues
that "demographic changes in the United States ... are working
against conventional suburban growth, and are likely to further
weaken preferences for car-based suburban living." In coming
decades, he speculates, as family size continues to shrink and
Americans are increasing drawn to urban residential
neighborhoods, more recently developed areas —
particularly low-density outer suburbs poorly served by public
transportation — will become "magnets for poverty,
crime, and social dysfunction."
• Builders at work on teardown projects are accustomed
to neighbors griping about noise, dust, and traffic, but in
North Dallas, Texas, a new complaint has joined the list: rats.
According to the Dallas Morning News, area residents are
complaining to the city that the demolition of vacant older
houses to make way for new ones is unleashing large numbers of
displaced rats — which are looking for new homes of
their own. "Rodents like it when it's quiet and their
environment is not disturbed," one area pest-control contractor
told the publication.
• U.S. home prices declined in 49 states during the
fourth quarter of 2007, according to recent figures from the
Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. Overall,
fourth-quarter prices declined by 1.3 percent —
substantially steeper than the .3 percent drop recorded for the
previous quarter. In a report accompanying the new figures,
OFHEO director James B. Lockhart looked hard for a silver
lining, noting that "although prices for home purchases in the
quarter fell in every state except Maine, only 16 states plus
the District of Columbia showed price declines for the full
year in 2007."
• Louisville Ladder is recalling 25,000 fiberglass
extension ladders that can fail when the extension section
fails to lock properly. The recalled ladders were manufactured
in Mexico and sold at industrial supply stores and home centers
nationwide from September 2007 through December 2007. For more
information, go to
www.louisvilleladder.com/17042007.asp.
• An unidentified 40-year-old worker on a Murray,
Utah, construction site was severely burned in March after
attempting to thaw frozen ground beneath footing forms by
dousing the area with gasoline and setting it on fire. The
local fire marshal told the local Deseret Morning News that
flames followed the stream of fuel to the can the worker was
holding in his hand, causing it to explode.
Arizona Immigration Law Drives Worker Exodus
Arizona's comprehensive new law against employing illegal
immigrants — which took effect in January but for
legal reasons wasn't enforced until March — is already
having an effect on the labor pool as thousands of Latino
workers leave for neighboring states.
The Legal Arizona Workers Act combines new hiring
requirements, tough sanctions against businesses that hire
illegal workers, and punitive measures aimed at the workers
themselves — such as a provision making it a felony to
use a false identity to obtain work.
The law requires that employers use the federal government's
Internet-based E-Verify system to confirm that all newly hired
workers are legally eligible for employment, and that county
attorneys investigate any claim that a business is using
illegal workers. If a company is found to have hired an illegal
worker, the state will suspend its business license for up to
10 days. A second offense will earn permanent revocation of the
license.
Earlier this year, county prosecutors charged with enforcement
agreed to postpone their efforts until March while preliminary
legal challenges to the law — none of which proved
successful — were considered by the courts. Since then
the focus has shifted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
which is expected to begin hearing arguments by late spring or
early summer.
So far, few builders are complaining of a labor shortage. One
reason could be that the building slump has hit Arizona
particularly hard; right now, more contractors are laying off
existing workers than are hiring new ones.
For example, Mesa, Ariz., masonry contractor Robert Ahlers
— who told the local East Valley Tribune in December
he was worried that "come January first when this goes into
effect, I'm going to wake up ... and half the people working
for me are going to be gone" — now says the law has
caused him no problems. "No one I know has said they lost a
good mason or bricklayer because he's going to Colorado or
moving back to Mexico," he told JLC, adding, "But now we've got
about 45 to 50 people working. A year ago we probably had 90 to
100." — J.V.
San Francisco Bay Area Builders
Push for Mandatory Green Standards
Early last year, when the Home Builders Association of
Northern California polled area residents on what they wanted
to see in new housing, one finding stood out. "An overwhelming
majority said they wanted to see more green and energy-saving
features," says HBANC executive director Joseph Perkins.
At about the same time, Perkins recalls, many of the 101
municipalities in the association's 14-county area were
discussing a new crop of regulations designed to boost
green-building practices. Putting two and two together, the
group decided to take the initiative and push for a uniform
green standard that would be mandatory and written into area
building codes.
As part of that effort, HBANC announced a partnership earlier
this year with the Berkeley-based nonprofit Build It Green,
which has developed just such a standard, the Green Point Rated
program. Together the two organizations have been lobbying
local governments to adopt the program; as of mid-April, says
Build It Green spokesman Brian Gitt, more than a dozen
municipalities had done so, writing it into their building
codes; another 40 — including San Francisco, Oakland,
and San Jose — are planning to follow suit. "We think
every municipality in the area will sign on in the next year or
two," Gitt says.
The effort benefits builders in many ways, says Perkins. For
one, it encourages consumers to give credit where credit's due.
"Our industry has been exemplary in reducing carbon emissions,"
Perkins says. "The fear was that if we let environmental
crusaders push green building standards through, they'd take
all the credit."
Moreover, the partnership with Build It Green gave builders
some control over the final details of area building codes,
making it less likely that municipalities would adopt
"ordinances that might be more draconian than what we're
looking for," Perkins says.
Perhaps most important, the effort has put the association's
members — who according to Perkins build three-fourths
of the Bay Area's new homes — on a more predictable
regulatory footing. "That alone is huge," Perkins says. "In the
worst case all 101 municipalities would have come up with 101
different standards." — Jon Vara
Last Call for the Domestic Production Activities
Deduction
The 2007 tax deadline is past, but if you overlooked a
recent change to the tax code that could qualify your business
for a hefty deduction, there may still be time to file an
amended return.
The Domestic Production Activities deduction —
established as part of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004
— allowed businesses with "qualified production
activities" to take a 3 percent deduction from net income for
the 2005 and 2006 tax years. For 2007, the allowable deduction
increased to 6 percent, where it will remain until it bumps up
to a permanent 9 percent in 2010.
Not sure what "qualified production activities" are? In
addition to U.S.-based manufacturing and software and
video-game development, IRS Code Section 199 specifically names
construction services, including building and renovating
residential and commercial properties, and related engineering
and architectural services. Calculating the permissible
deduction can get pretty complicated, however, and most
builders should probably get professional help. —
J.V.