Building Equity into the

Design Process

DOcumentation and Transparency

Documentation

Material (provided on paper, online, or on digital or analog media) that bears official information or evidence or that serves as a record. It can help organize and deliver your thoughts to stakeholders, as well as hold you accountable to your stakeholders due to increased transparency in how design decisions were made.

Transparency

The outcome of clear and consistent documentation.

It is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.

Transparency implies openness, communication, accountability, and integrity.

Some important considerations regarding documentation:

Make readily available to all project stakeholders updated designs, plans and other relevant information
Improve inclusion and access by
- Creating consistent, clear, and detailed documentation that empowers the reader to understand context and narrative of the design and decision making
- Providing Multilingual, including sign language, options (Language Justice)
- Ensuring access for people with disabilities e.g. audio recording, assistive technology compatibility (closed captions, text-to-speech, braille software)
Store and maintain project documents in case of a lawsuit

To increase shared, collective knowledge, there should be transparency throughout every phase in the design process regarding:

Who the stakeholders are (e.g. investors and political figures)
Environmental Risk and Impacts (air, water, land and food, pollution sources, pollutants)
Health Impacts (Health Symptoms, Disease and Disorders and Psychological Symptoms and Disorders)
Socioeconomic Impacts (Economic, Housing, Education, Political, Social)
Impact on availability of services (example: public transportation route and frequency changes)

Accessibility

The "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity. The concept focuses on enabling access for people with disabilities, or enabling access through the use of assistive technology; however, research and development in accessibility brings benefits to everyone (Wikipedia).

Accessible Language

Language that accommodates people of all ages and abilities, including those with cognitive disabilities, people with low literacy skills, and speakers of English as a foreign language. Some qualities of accessible language include using examples and analogies to explain or support complicated ideas, avoiding the use of jargon that are used only by a particular subgroup, or explaining their definition when they appear (Bureau of Internet Accessibility).

Language Justice

Based in respect for the language rights of all people, including people whose languages have been exiled, disappeared, stolen or made invisible through processes of colonial violence (Antena Aire). Language access ensures that everyone’s voices are truly heard and included in the process of community change. Marginalized peoples across race, gender, class, region, language, and dialect should have equal access to be active and engaged participants and leaders in the work for social change, equity, and liberation (Move to End Violence).

Construction Documentation

Project documents to keep on record in construction include:

drawings and specifications,
design/engineering calculations,
project diaries,
reports (progress reports, environmental reports, safety and incident reports),
erosion and sedimentation plans
requests for information (RFI) and responses,
meeting notes and minutes,
contracts and purchase orders,
change orders,
all versions of shop drawings and other submittals,
construction progress photographs,
site progress/field reports,
certificates of insurance,
approvals of permits or inspections, and
emails and other correspondence.

All of these documents will be necessary for litigation and conflict resolution that may occur over the intended life of the infrastructure. Common reasons for a claim in construction work include: non-payment, delay and scope of work disputes, negligent professional services, defective construction work, and environmental incidents.

Building Inspector on the site of a construction project examining the builiding blueprints.

Building accountability for environmental risks, hazards, and impacts of projects

Construction sites and large infrastructure such as roads, highways, and bridges are sources of significant contributions of pollutants (sediment, oil and grease, heavy metals, debris, road salts, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) to waterways.

Polluted runoff, also considered nonpoint source pollution, is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground, picking up and carrying pollutants, and transporting them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal and ground waters. Increases in pollution should be monitored and reported.

Now, let's consider how construction documentation can foster an equitable or inequitable design practice.

We will use permits as our example. Permits are a specific type of documentation that is necessary before breaking ground on a project. They gives states, counties, towns, and municipalities the ability to enforce building codes. Local governments adopt codes to ensure that all infrastructure meets minimum safety and structural standards.

Permits inherently add equity into the design process by:

Enforcing safety requirements that would benefit ALL people. For example, by enforcing construction standards and building codes, they give you and the other occupants in a building the best chance to avoid fire, structural failure or something as simple as a child getting their head caught between stair posts.
Requiring designs to meet certain accessibility and ADA requirements, forcing inclusivity into design practice through the enforcement of building codes and construction standards

Permits can also be an inequitable practice:

Permits may be fast tracked or approved based on if the people at play have heightened political or institutional power.
The permitting office may be backlogged, delaying approval of projects that would provide much needed services.

Another example is considering the extensive documentation required for recording environmental risks and impacts in a design. Before even breaking ground for construction, the following documentation is necessary:

Project planning/scoping stage
- The State Environmental Review Process initiated.
Preliminary design phase
- An Environmental Assessment and a Health Impact Assessment was completed to fulfill requirements enforced by the National Environmental Policy Act.
Detailed design phase
- The utility impacts were determined and utility field inspection occurred
- The erosion and sedimentation/hydraulic plans were developed (e.g. completion of a stormwater pollution prevention plan [SWPPP] that outlines how best management practices [BMPs] will be utilized to prevent runoff from becoming polluted and to reduce the amount that reaches surface waters).
Final design phase
- Erosion and sedimentation plans finalized
- Utility design finalized and more utility field inspection occured
- The obtainment of environmental permits (e.g. National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System [NPDES] storm water permit)

Sequence of Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

Figure retrieved from Cole et al. (2005).

Examples of Erosion and Sedimentation Plans as Part of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan

Our mission is to ensure that Hoo City has the safest, most efficient transportation system, which enhances the quality of life in our communities. We must be accountable to the people, as well as transparent as we move forward. The Request for Proposal (RFP) is ready to go thanks to the groundwork by your team at Wahoo Engineering. We are excited to see what contractors bids on the project.

PIEDMONT ENGINEERING SERVICES

Got our bid turned in on time. Now to wait and see if we had the most competitive one!

With the set of plans & specifications completed thanks to the hard work by your team at Wahoo Engineering Group and SDOT, the documents become legal, binding elements of a contract. The contract includes stipulations for defining how to be administer the contract, referred to as General Conditions and Supplementary Conditions. These conditions provide critical details like:

considerations for responsibilities of each party
dispute resolution protocol, duration of project
mandatory wage rates characteristic of the local area.

Limited-sight-distance-on-horizontal-curves-with-median-safety-barrier-along-a-left-curve_

Typical-cross-section-of-6-lanes-divided-highway-freeway-major-highway-minor-highway_W640.

SDOT makes these documents available for the bidding process. Updated plans are made readily available to all project stakeholders. At this point, the construction documents may be changed only via formal Change Orders.

The Bid Process Begins!

Based on this work, SDOT put together a Request for Proposals document, informing bidding contractors as to the scope of the project (defines project's requirements and goals), contract terms, and criteria for evaluating entries. Bidders review the solicitation and submit suggestions for improvement. After implementing feedback, the final request for proposal is issued.

SDOT takes transparency in the bidding process very seriously. They make sure the following information is always updated when they solicit bids:

contact information,
RFP (information to bidding contractors as to what the project entails and contract terms),
date and time bids are due,
location and work hours of the respective office where the bids are to be collected.

This information and any additional pertinent information is made available in different languages and forms for accessibility. SDOT advertises the notice to bidders for the highway project. During the bid period, they collected proposals from a large array of general contractors (GCs).

The process of forming a bid begins with a GC examining construction plans, performing quantity takeoffs, and creating a rough estimate for the project. Using the quantity take-off method, you individually estimate units of materials and labor for each task you listed in your estimating framework. After estimating materials and labor, the following items are added: subcontractor fees, labor burden, project overhead costs, project equipment, contingencies, allowances, company overhead, and profit.

Piedmont Engineering Services, a GC based in the heart of Hoo City, is putting together a proposal for the highway/boulevard project. They send their own bid invitations to subcontractors that detail the construction project and scope of work. A subcontractors is a business that carries out work for a company as part of a larger project. Subcontractors determine whether they are a good fit (based on if they think they would be able to produce a competitive bid compared to other subcontractors who might be participating in the bidding process), then submit a detailed bid (representing a hard number that the subcontractors agree to complete the job for) to Piedmont Engineering Services or any of the other GC's putting together a proposal. During the bid period, Piedmont Engineering Services collected bids from a large array of subcontractors.

Piedmont Engineering Services is proud of their reputation for having minimal construction-related accidents on their job sites. Additionally, Piedmont Engineering Services has adopted sustainable management practices on construction sites aiming at mitigating environmental impacts produced during the construction phase. This will be especially important for this highway project due to the nonpoint source pollution that can be caused by erosion during construction.

As a value-driven GC, Piedmont Engineering Services does their best to pick the bids from the subcontractors that provide the best value for the specified work with additional considerations such as the subcontractor's :

reputation to produce high quality work in a timely manner
desire to promote equitable practices (e.g. living wage),
safety record,
compliance in meeting environmental policy and guidelines as well as implementing sustainable practices and materials (e.g. proper disposal of waste materials, minimization of wastes, adhering to runoff control measures, controlling dust from use of machinery).

Policy

Key Attributes of Public Policy

(Center for Civic Education):

Policy is made in response to some sort of issue or problem that requires attention.
Policy is what the government chooses to do (actual) or not do (implied) about a particular issue or problem.
Policy might take the form of law, or regulation, or the set of all the laws and regulations that govern a particular issue or problem.
Policy is made on behalf of the "public."
Policy is oriented toward a goal or desired state, such as the solution of a problem.
Policy is ultimately made by governments, even if the ideas come from outside government or through the interaction of government and the public.
Policymaking is part of an ongoing process that does not always have a clear beginning or end, since decisions about who will benefit from policies and who will bear any burden resulting from the policy are continually reassessed, revisited and revised.

A policy often comes in the form of general statements about priorities, written regulations or guidelines, procedures and/or standards to be achieved.

Public policy is a course of action created and/or enacted, typically by a government, in response to public, real-world problems. Public policy rarely tackles one problem, but rather deals with clusters of entangled and long-term problems. It provides guidance to governments and accountability links to citizens (Mackay et al.).

Policy is one of the most powerful tools we have to make and prioritize change.
For example, to address the vital connection between human well-being and healthy ecosystems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has partnered with organizations and communities to design public policy that promotes equitable development and environmental justice (EJ) .

Equitable Development

An approach for meeting the needs of underserved communities through policies and programs that reduce disparities while fostering places that are healthy and vibrant (EPA).

Environmental Justice

The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.

Public Communication

One of the best methods you can employ to build trust and rapport is through effective, consistent communication. It can be used to inform persuade, and to create awareness, to build relationships, and to encourage open dialogue in organizations and communities toward resilient solutions.

Public communication is strategic communication used when a person or group of people collect and share information to a group of people to deliver a message on a specific topic. It is a practice of understanding, designing, implementing, and evaluating successful communication campaigns within a framework that serves the public interest.

When conducting meaningful public communication, it can evolve into public participation by the seeking of public input. Public participation can be any process that directly engages the public in decision-making and gives full consideration to public input in making that decision.

International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Public Participation Spectrum (2018)

Piedmont Engineering Services has made a strong commitment to supporting local, diverse businesses that promote safety and living wages for their employees. Some of the different types of subcontractors they seek to work with and build sustainable partnerships with including those designated as:

Small Businesses (SB),
Minority/Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (M/DBE) and Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB),
Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB),
Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) and Economically-Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB),
Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone), and
Minority Business Enterprise Small, Women- or Minority-owned (SWaM).

Piedmont Engineering Services regularly hosts professional events and training opportunities for subcontractors in the area to meet and share ideas. They also make a point to attend events hosted by local subcontractors or professional organizations (e.g. Associated General Contractors [AGC]). Building relationships like these matter because they foster better communication during projects with subcontractors. You yourself have attended many of these events and found them extremely useful for networking and developing relationships.

Piedmont Engineering Services as pulled together their final bid and turn in their proposal. Following deliberation over the bids from the various GCs, SDOT awards the contract to Piedmont Engineering Services.

Piedmont Engineering Services hired you as a consultant due to your prior work experience on the project and your familiarity with the surrounding communities.

A Notice to Proceed is given by SDOT to the contractor’s proposal to establish a legally binding contractual relationship.

P.E.S.

Consultant

Wahoo

Engineering

Group

With all permits and contracts approved with subcontractors, Piedmont Engineering Services is ready to break ground on the highway project! With all the work that went toward making this project a reality, you are excited to see this project become a reality.

Let’s talk about Implementation

SJ ED