The Role of Physical Planning and Construction

A number of University of California policies, campus policies, and state laws are involved every time a construction or utility change is made on campus. The campus must comply with numerous building code, handicap access, and life safety regulations, along with mitigation measures required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to minimize the environmental impacts of even the smallest projects. An example of one such regulation is that special fire resistant construction assemblies are required by the California Code of Regulations for many buildings on campus.

Often, compliance requires not only a knowledge of the rules, but a knowledge of the facility as well. Many structures on campus contain asbestos in various building materials. Undisturbed, the asbestos is not hazardous, but if the material is cut into by persons not aware of its presence nor trained to contain or remove it, a serious hazard may be created. The same is true for lead-based paint.

Physical Planning and Construction is the unit responsible for ensuring Campus compliance with these laws, codes and regulations. PP&C also endeavors to create and maintain Campus Design Standards that will ensure that Campus buildings are safe, accessible, relatively inexpensive to maintain, and make a positive aesthetic contribution to the extraordinary site that is the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Physical Planning and Construction is occasionally confused with Physical Plant. The essential difference between the two units is that PP&C is responsible for planning, building, and altering the campus, while Physical Plant is responsible for maintaining it.

Physical Planning and Construction offers professional services to the UC Santa Cruz campus including:

The Role of the Project Manager

Each project is assigned a Project Manager (PM), who is responsible for the detailed coordination of the project (See Small Projects Checklist). The PM must resolve the often conflicting interests of the client, the Office of the President, the contractor, the campus maintence staff, the environment, code and life safety authorities, and numerous groups with special interests in all construction on campus, such as the campus parking office, the handicapped community, the Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S), and Information Technology Services (ITS). The Project Manager must ensure that the project complies with Campus Standards, local, state and federal codes, and state procurement and contract laws. Throughout this obstacle course of project delivery, the PM is responsible for tracking the schedule and the budget, and keeping interested parties aware of the progress of the work.

When scheduling a project, the PM must provide adequate time for in-house reviews at appropriate stages in the development of the construction documents. Reviews of a typical large project would occur at schematic, design development, as well as at 50% and 100% stages of construction document completion. Smaller projects will require fewer iterations of the review process. It is the responsibility of the Project Manager to distribute review sets of drawings and specifications to the various project collaborators (See Project Review List ).

The Project Manager will be the key person responsible throughout the duration of the design and construction process and will be your principal contact for current status and update information. Your Project Manager will have the following responsibilities related to your project:

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