Construction Files

A standard front end stipulated price document for use on publicly funded building projects with CCDC 2, Stipulated Price Contract (1994), is now available on the website of the Public Construction Council of BC. This document, which has been endorsed by the BC Construction Association and the Architectural Institute of BC, was created in consultation with an AIBC Working Group consisting of public owner representatives, design professional representatives from the Architectural Institute of BC, Consulting Engineers of BC and the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC and contractor representatives from BC Construction Association.

A desire to create a seamless standard document, which lends itself to fair distribution of the risk in the bidding/contracting process, is what led to this somewhat unique collaboration and outcome. The document is complementary to CCDC 2 (1994) and the standard document’s Standard Supplementary Conditions include some changes that will be implemented in the much anticipated new CCDC 2, which is expected to be available in the Fall of 2004. This AIBC Working Group Document will be amended at that time to reflect the changes. The ‘Front End’ (Instructions to Bidders and Bid Form) part of the document reflects much material drawn from the upcoming 2004 edition of CCDC-23.

Some of the areas where the document has addressed the issue of reducing risk to the owners and other benefits are:

• Use of a standard document will attract more bidders to a project. Familiar contracts enable contractors to more easily quantify risk, reducing the need to increase bids in order to compensate for the unknown. 
• Guidelines and formats to assist with creating a complete bidding document with guidelines for:
  • An Invitation to Bid.
  • Guidelines for some Specification Division 1
    General Requirements issues that in the past
    have often appeared questionably as Supplementary
    Conditions.
  • Clarifications of some General Conditions in
    CCDC 2 of which misinterpretations in the
    past have led to questionable Supplementary
    Conditions.
  • Guidelines for other specification issues relating
    to Record Drawings, Cash Allowances and
    Extended Warranties.
  • Site Visit Guidelines for post-bid-closing site
    visits.
  • A Checklist to assist bidding calling authorities
    with completing these Standard Documents.
• The ‘Front End’ documents are drafted in the
  context of current contract law allowing the
  owner some flexibility to deal with bidding errors
  and procedures. One asset is that the document
  includes a ‘Guideline for Administering Bidding
  Irregularities’, which the AIBC Working Group
  members thought would be valuable to assist bid
  calling authorities in dealing with irregularities
  that appear on Contractors’ Bid Forms from time
  to time.
• Supplementary Conditions that allow acceleration
  of the work when the project falls behind schedule
  due to the fault of the contractor.

The Construction File is a publication of the BC Construction Association.
For additional information contact the BCCA.