With the growth of the NYC Construction regulatory process, compliance requirements have resulted in many “engineering” or “means and methods” efforts that were only handled by shop drawings and/or infield contractor supervision to be designed, filed, approved, permitted, inspected and closed out. This requirement of construction design has resulted in new filing areas such as SOE, Demo DS1, safety protection design, scaffold design, as well as programmatic submissions that accompany the lifting of many a stop work order. It has also expanded architectural design requirements for tenant protection plans, fire safety plans, fire protection plans and builders paving plans to name a few. Another contributing factor has been the splintering of responsibility during the design function.  What used to take four design professionals in the 1980s, today can climb to the double digits. Such areas as environmental, soils, geotech, safety design and SOE factors have resulted in the emergence of different engineering disciplines. Pile on the expansion testing and inspection requirements, a design team now approaches the size of a football team that presents its own set of coordinating issues. These new components for a project requires Construction Architectural and Engineering Services (CArE).  It poses some integral challenges for the project’s owner and construction team from the start of preconstruction to the final C of O obtainment. 1. Ensure all compliance functions and requirements are bought. Make sure you look at the DOB required items and translate them into tasks and responsibilities that you ensure are addressed somewhere in the contracts professional, contractor or subcontractor. 2. Ensure proper coordination during pre-construction. Mechanicals, BIM, manual coordination do it.  It will prevent costly construction change orders in the field, and prevent making your building look like Swiss cheese from costly chopping, coring and provide less stress for the structural engineer and the whole project team. 3. Don’t skimp on the  controlled inspections package. This work provides a third party oversight for the owner over everybody.  It will also uncover issues with site contractor means and methods and provide additional general conditions, type staff and quality control if used correctly. 4. Even if not a controlled inspection requirement of the construction, buy design professional/field visits and identify “hold”  points for inspections that will ensure proper work. 5. Buy a well “designed” safety program. Don’t leave things to “contractor” chance show “designed” protection details and location; identify egress, signage and alternative “construction phase” life safety (alternative means of fire protection, egress, emergency procedures, etc.) and gain approval through the proper regulatory agency (NYCFD, NYCDOB, NYCDOT). Implement a worker orientation program, ensure they are trained, have every contractor submit a safety plan and identify an F/T on site competent person. Have safety oversight inspection. 6. Deal with adjacent property protection access agreements during the pre-con process and provide a real time construction monitoring process. Roof protection underpinning, skylights, vents, chimneys, courtyard easements and accesses all have to be dealt with to ensure a safe and efficient project. 7. Make sure any TR-1’s items that are felt to not be required are removed at the initial filing process component.  Remember that once the job has progressed and the progress special inspections have not happened, it is a recipe for TCO disaster. 8. Ensure the licensed contractor (PL/SP) PL/SP contractor are having their progress inspections. Roughing, finish, etc. during the construction process. 9. Start the TCO process early. Paperwork compiling always lags and is a nightmare. 10. Ensure all PAA’s are filed and approved, especially anything involving zoning or egress if a CCD1 or ZRD1 is required – get it.  Nothing is worse than having something built that hasn’t had a design approval, another recipe for disaster. 11. Have a building code and zoning consultant to do a preview of the drawings and decide about problematic interpretations – either get a determination done or deal with it during the plan review objection process. Just realize has most jobs go through three zoning reviews and if something is not caught in day one it may be caught in day 10 (a problem). 12. Never professionally certify zoning.  The only items that should ever be considered to be professionally certified are building code items. 13. Make sure all temporary structures are designed and evaluated if they should be filed or not. 14. Ensure your contractor has a capacity of engineering, scheduling, estimating, purchasing and coordination. Also make sure his insurance passes not only for DOB permit, but review the exclusions of the policy. Evaluate the efficiency of the insurance as the owner will probably pay for it anyway. 15. Alteration Type 1 work presents a whole host of different compliance problems, from partial demo to construction life safety issues, to structural stability. Evaluate compliance at the beginning and do necessary compliance planning and gain regulatory approval-avoiding costly stop work orders during the construction process. This becomes more and more realty as the land prices increase making the development of existing buildings more and more a reality and feasible. These are the items that typically slip through the “compliance cracks” of a project and result in delayed approvals, stop work orders, or a costly delayed CO process. Be aware, buy smart and realize a dollar spent on planning and engineering can save you from construction costs if you deal with it down the line. Matt Caruso is the president of Construction Realty Safety Group, Valley Stream, N.Y. Tags: