Office of Facilities Planning
Newsletter Update #14 – April 2001


Get to Know Us Better
:

We would like you to meet Joan DeDeo. Although Joan has worked for our office six years, she has been with our Department for, as she says, "many, many years!" She is assigned as Carl Thurnau's secretary, but in reality she does secretarial work for the entire staff. If you call to set up a meeting with Carl, you will definitely speak to Joan!

Although the workload in our office is heavy, Joan says she enjoys working with "the cast of characters" in Facilities Planning!

Joan would like you to know that, although her last name is "DeDeo," she is definitely of Irish heritage and darn proud of it. She enjoys dancing, movies and just having fun. Joan has one son, Ken, who is now 22 years old and a graduate of SUNY Albany. She's hoping he will settle down and produce some grandchildren for her--but not too soon! So, in the meantime, Joan is giving lots of love and attention to her "Granddog" whose name is "D-O-G" (pronounced "dee-oh-gee"...now that sounds like an Italian name and goes really well with "DeDeo").

New Revised Code Compliance Checklist 2/14/2001

NEW Code Compliance Checklist

We have added a NEW Code Compliance Checklist to our web site. This form will be required for EVERY submission provided to SED for review and approval. Any submission received without this form will not be put into the system for review by the Project Managers until it is received. Projects are checked in when received and the person checking them will contact the architect or engineer of record to request this form if it is missing.

The NYSED sheets are not required to be submitted anymore. We will not accept them in lieu of the Code Compliance Checklist. Therefore, the NYSED sheets are removed from the website. Our Project Managers are selecting all projects that are single trade for review as soon as possible based on our current workload. The Code Review Worksheets, to which the NYSED sheets were attached, will remain on the web site as a design tool for your convenience.

You can go straight to the Code Compliance Checklist by using the hyperlink above. This checklist appears in the "What's New" and "Checklists" areas of the web page. It can be downloaded in Microsoft Excel or printed by using Acrobat PDF Reader.

Please fill out everything that is appropriate in the boxes provided. If you check "Yes" for an item, you will need to indicate where the information can be found in your documents. If you check "No" or "NA" for any item, be sure of the requirements in the building code or Manual of Planning Standards for that item before doing so. The biggest problem we had with the NYSED sheets was that items were indicated as not applicable when they actually were applicable. This resulted in non-complaint documents, required addenda and delayed approval.

Energy Performance Contract Guidelines:

Energy Performance Contracts require an excruciatingly long process for our Engineers to review. With that in mind, we have come up with the following guidelines for all Energy Performance Projects. Here is a hyperlink to the new Guidelines:

Energy Performance Contract Guidelines

From now on these guidelines will apply to all Energy Performance Contracts. An Energy Performance Contract (EPC) is an agreement by an Energy Service Company (ESCO) for the provision of energy services in which energy systems are installed, maintained, or managed to improve the energy efficiency of, or produce energy for, a facility in exchange for a portion of the energy savings. The project scope must be directly related to energy savings.


Revised Public School Fire Prevention and Fire Inspection Manual
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At long last, the revised Public School Fire Prevention and Fire Inspection Manual has been added to the Facilities Planning website. Since the manual is available on our website, we will no longer be mailing the manual to schools. If you would like a copy, please download it from our website. The hyperlink to the revised manual is:

Fire Safety Inspection Manual

The public fire safety reports (long and short form) will soon be available on our website. The nonpublic forms and manual will be added in the near future.


International Building Code
:

It is our understanding that New York State has almost completed the official process to adopt the International Building Code (IBC). The final rules will incorporate "enhancements" for New York State. These "enhancements" are additions or changes to the International Code made by technical sub-committees appointed by the Department of State Codes Division (DOS). Code Officials attending training sessions are being told that the final version that will be sold to A/E's and the public will be a reprinted version of the IBC with the NYS enhancements incorporated directly into it.

You should begin planning to start designing projects using the IBC, especially if you are going to be submitting them to Facilities Planning during the latter half of 2002. To the best of our knowledge, January 2002 will probably be when the changeover to the new code will start. Eventually during 2002 projects submitted to Facilities Planning would be required to be designed utilizing the IBC and the SED Manual of Planning Standards, not the present New York State Code. The Department of State has yet to issue any official guidance on how or when the changeover will be implemented. We suggest that you contact the DOS for information on the enhancements and the changeover and to express your opinions on how it should be accomplished. Their number is (518) 474-4073.

At this time, DOS will not provide classes on the new code for architects and engineers. There are other alternatives for training, such as your local chapter of the AIA and NYSBOC. This is a big change. We hope you will look into it as soon as possible. We think you will find the changes beneficial in most instances.


If you would like to have this Update sent directly to you by e-mail, please send your e-mail address to Joe Levy at jlevy@mail.nysed.gov


Please continue to send in your comments and requests. If you have a subject you would like addressed, feedback on the material you read, input or general comments we are happy t hear from you.