Construction Files

As a result of the publication of the new CCDC 2, 2008 there is a concurrent update being undertaken to the Standard Documents and Guidelines for a Stipulated Price Bid for use on Publicly Funded Building Projects in the Province of British Columbia. The updated document is being released under the care of the newly formed British Columbia Documents Committee (BCDC), signifying its document numbering as BCDC 2, 2008.

This update to the existing document, which was published in 2004, is being endorsed by the BC Construction Association and the Architectural Institute of BC and was completed in consultation with the BC Documents Committee, which consists of public owner representatives, design professional representatives from the Architectural Institute of BC, Consulting Engineers of BC and contractor representatives from BC Construction Association.

It is anticipated that BCDC 2, 2008 will be available in July/08 and will be downloadable, like its predecessor document, on the website of the Public Construction Council of BC (www.pccbc.com, under Documents.

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 (2008) and includes some BC Standard Supplementary Conditions. The ‘Front End’ (Instructions to Bidders and Bid Form) part of the document reflects much material drawn from the CCDC-23 (2005). 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 is valuable to assist owners 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 document published in 2004 (endorsed by AIBC and BCCA) is used by School Districts, Colleges & Universities, Health Authorities and Local Governments. We are hopeful that a broader use of the CCDC2, 2008 document will extend to more public owners, adding some stability to the current turmoil being created by bidding documents with onerous conditions that are reducing competition and raising the cost of public construction in BC.

For additional information on the BCDC 2, 2008 document contact the BC Documents Committee through the Public Construction Council of BC at pccbc@pccbc.com.