Home Builders & Remodelers plea to the Governor

May 15th is the date set forth by the Governor to begin reopening New York, but local contractors are pleading for an earlier date.

Ready to get back to work, and are appealing to the governor's office to allow that to happen now.

Newschannel 2's kirk tupaj tells us why every day makes a difference.

The home builders and remodelers association of the mohawk valley sent a letter to the governor asking that residential construction workers be allowed to go back to work as soon as possible.

Linda fake is the president of the association, and says every other state in the u.s. is either open or scheduled to open by may 7th & except for new york, and that could force contractors to permanently leave the state.

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None sot: linda fake, president homebuilders & remodelers of the mohawk valley every state that borders new york is open for construction right now, and we have subcontractors and contractors who need to put food on their tables.

They're going to leave the state, and i don't know if we'll get them back.

We already had a workforce shortage as it was, dhis is onlyeepening that divide.

New york buildersho complete their work due to the weather, and while many people are able to go on unemployment, not all contractors have that option.

Sot: linda fake, president homebuilders & remodelers of the mohawk valley some of our members have been able to apply for unemployment, but much like everyone else that hasthere still waitg weekin to even e a paycheckyet.y at their compies are foulated are t able to, and they'rreally just ling ofof any savis that theyhave.

Yi contracting busy at work even now.

They've applied for a waiver to conduct emergency work.

Sot: eric zangrilli, zangrilli contracting the department of labor allows me to do emergency jobs.

If there's a leaky roof we can fix it.

We can re-do them as long as we can provide proper social distancing, which is pretty easy outdoors, so yeah we're allowed to.

The majority of contractors not only have to depend on the governor to lift restrictions, but are also facing a struggling economy.

Sot: eric zangrilli, zangrilli contracting people are a little bit afraid to spend the money right now.

I have a lot of jobs lined up.

Only a few of them are saying go ahead and not all of them are leaking per say, so we can do some of them, not all of them yet.

Construction is identified as part of the phase 1 "unpause", but there's still questions surrounding when that will start.

In new hartford, i'm kirk tupaj reporting for newschannel 2.

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