Comprehensive project planning that identifies regulatory requirements and risks years in advance so that complex construction projects can be built on schedule.
Any construction project is an enormously complex undertaking with a myriad of moving parts. This is especially true with large projects, particularly linear ones. Enormous sums of money are at stake. Legal, financial and political stakeholders have a significant influence. In-service dates have major dollar amounts attached to them. A slipped schedule can be unbelievably expensive. In response to these realities, we have developed a project planning capability, which allows us to help ensure that our clients are not blindsided by unanticipated issues or delays.
Our process begins years before construction does. It starts with the planned completion date. Everything works backwards from that. Once that’s determined, our lawyers then perform a jurisdictional review, identifying parcel by parcel which regulatory approvals and processes and agencies will influence a project’s completion. This is painstaking, thorough work, in which we review a significant amount of information such as title searches, online searches, tax records and other public records. We know what to look for and how to best navigate the process.
Once the jurisdictional review is completed, Rutter & Roy then develop a preliminary project schedule and prepare a risk register, identifying potential schedule risks. We then develop approaches to managing the identified risks. For instance, is a pipeline being constructed using an open cut or horizontal drilling? What permitting will each of these require? When should the application be submitted? To whom? If there are multiple regulatory agencies, can we combine or streamline their processes to minimize the number of public hearings? Can we make it smoother or easier for the regulator to combine, for instance, a Green Acres hearing and a conservation restriction release hearing? This phase of the planning process is extremely detailed. It also leverages our relationship with the regulatory agencies involved. We always endeavor to consider how regulators think, what is important to them, what they need. At the end, we have developed an extremely detailed master schedule that outlines every possible step. This is really the only way to manage a large-scale project.
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