Member Guest Post: BUILDING AFFORDABLE FAST - PART TWO
BY JIM WILLIAMS
Senior Project Manager, Withee Malcolm Architects, a BSB Design Studio
In my first article, I discussed the typical timeframes involved for many affordable housing projects, including the do or die 180-day timeline for permitting. Success hinges on your ability to compress the design process without sacrificing quality. I argue that rethinking the critical path is a necessary strategy that can make meeting this deadline much easier.
Putting the Cart Before the Horse (On Purpose)
A few simple tips can help you start to reorganize the project critical path, and doing so can carve precious minutes, hours, days and even weeks out of the project development process.
It may seem counterintuitive at times, especially in the architecture/engineering professions where rules and order are so important. But this method of critical path analysis and adjustment can be a real difference maker, and when planned appropriately, can be relatively easy to implement.
1. Plan Check or For Construction: In general, ask yourself if something is for the plan checkers or if it is only needed once construction starts. Everything still needs to be completed, but this question can help you adjust the order of processes and save time. Don’t get me wrong, changes like this often require more total effort on your part. But missing the 180-day deadline often kills the project, so a little extra effort is worth it. It starts with having a good and trusting relationship with a building department and thoroughly understanding the critical path. This will push projects to funding milestones faster than anything else.
2. Window Schedule: Most project sequencing would have exterior elevations being 100% finished before even considering starting the window schedules (charts giving the exact size, material and glazing values of all windows). For a publicly funded affordable housing project, I prefer to generate the window schedule before the elevations are finished. It takes experience – and a touch of intuition – to know how the elevations are going to turn out before they are actually done, so why risk it? Because the energy consultant and/or the mechanical engineer need to start the Title 24 energy calculations.
Success hinges on your ability to compress the design process without sacrificing quality.
These reports/calculations take a while and are required for permitting. If the architecture team works to complete the elevations while the engineers are working on the T24 energy calculations and reports… boom! We just saved two weeks. Even if my early window schedule ends up being a bit different than the actual elevations, and the energy consultant/mechanical engineer have to adjust their calculations/report, we might only save 1.9 weeks but we are still ahead of the game. Like I said above, saving time can actually take more work, so budget accordingly.
3. Slab Plan: Architects often like to create slab plans either right before or right after doing the overall floor plans. This sequence usually makes sense, but for a publicly funded affordable housing project, I do not want to spend time working on anything that could compromise the permit deadline. Instead, I run a quick exercise to make sure the slab plan will work when we do eventual draw it (trade secret…LOL). Then I simply don’t create a slab plan until the very end, often after getting the building permit. The slab plan is for the contractor; it is not for the plan checkers and is virtually never needed to pull a permit. Adjusting the critical path here can save two more weeks and will likely reduce drawing errors.
4. Enlarged Building Plans and Dimensions: Plan check often requires enlarged building plans and full dimensions. But do plan checkers really need them? I say no, but it’s important to have a conversation with the building department to make sure everyone is on the same page. Dimensions necessary to demonstrate code compliance are an entirely different thing than dimensions necessary to ensure that the building is constructed as intended. Both are important, but they do not both need to be done at the same time. In fact, I prefer to push off construction dimensions until the very end to reduce the chance of dimension errors due to design changes that may happen during plan check. Knowing how to dimension to provide the plan checkers the info they need to do their jobs and how to later add dimensions to make sure the field has everything they need is a bit of an art but can save a couple weeks of time if done properly. It can also reduce dimension errors in the final set of construction documents.
Conclusion
Once upon a time, manipulating the critical path often felt like some kind of dirty trick. Efforts to meet stringent permitting deadlines meant the building department might receive a 30% construction document set but be told (with a straight face) that it was 100% complete. Then the design team would hustle to get everything done while waiting on plan check comments from the city. This runaround doesn’t help anyone achieve their goals. It also negatively impacts the crucial relationship between the architect and the building department.
Thankfully, many cities are now very accommodating to many of the process adjustments I mentioned above. For example, Los Angeles has a parallel plan check process and an Affordable Housing Streamlined Approval Process that allows projects to be submitted very early in partially complete form. This means the design team receives feedback sooner in the process. This expedited critical path still works even in cities that do not have a fully developed streamlining system. It usually just requires meeting with the building department to explain the process and ensure everyone is on the same page. I find building departments very receptive to such transparency, and it usually leads to a two-way trusting relationship where everyone wins.
About the Author:
Jim Williams is an Associate and Senior Project Manager at Withee Malcolm Architects and Planners, a 40+ year old architecture and design firm in southern California. Jim specializes in affordable multifamily housing projects of a wide range and typology, bringing experience with developers, investors and municipalities throughout the region.