Adjacent Construction

As one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas, New York City has enacted stringent building codes for adjacent construction. But protection from injury and property damage should never be an afterthought, no matter how large or small the municipality. If you’re performing or impacted by demolition, excavation, or construction along lot lines or near historic structures, or your buildings have shared or party walls, our forensics experts can help you safeguard your neighbors – and yourself.

HERE'S HOW

As cities evolve and populations grow, adjacent construction occurs more frequently. And when certain types of construction or excavation are planned, protections must be put into place to maintain the integrity of adjacent properties. Among the activities that can impact nearby buildings are demolition, support of excavation, underpinning, dewatering, pile and mat foundation installation, and installation of protections during superstructure work.

Building codes vary, not just between countries, but among cities and states. Our forensics specialists know the applicable codes and will review them, along with the construction documents, with developers and impacted neighbors to make sure the construction strategy protects all parties. Then we’ll work with you to develop a comprehensive construction protection plan (CPP) to identify monitoring thresholds at which construction should be paused or halted to prevent damage. We'll also specify actions to take if new or potential damage is detected. 

Implementation of a CPP does more than just fulfill building code requirements. It helps prevent new or worsened damage to adjacent buildings and protects impacted neighbors from nearby construction work. It helps limit your liability in the event of a damage claim, and it helps maintain amicable relationships between neighbors. Most importantly, it helps protect occupants of neighboring buildings from accidental injury resulting from your construction activities. 

Our technical capabilities include:

• License Agreements. Our team of engineers and architects reviews all applicable construction documents to identify and minimize the potential impacts of the new construction on neighboring properties’ structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. We examine all proposed temporary protection measures to ensure they’re both applicable and constructable and use our expertise to help our clients, both developers and impacted neighbors, reach fair and realistic license agreements.  
• Pre-Construction Assessment. We use cutting-edge hardware and software – including drones, lidar scanning, 360^o cameras and Matterport 3D-capture technology – to produce maneuverable, scalable 3D models documenting the interior and exterior conditions of adjacent buildings prior to construction. 
• Construction Monitoring and Assessment. We collaborate with our client, adjacent building operators and the consulting engineer to formulate a CPP that includes vibration, optical and crack-gauge monitoring, along with a schedule of visual surveys to identify any changes in the structure that occur during construction. This enables you to take early action when conditions reach prespecified thresholds. Such monitoring enables you to detect incipient damage and implement measures to repair it and prevent further damage. We review monitoring reports and respond when construction incidents or damage occurs at your property.
• Post-Construction Assessment. Using the same tools employed for the pre-construction assessment, our forensics experts perform a final survey of all buildings adjacent to the construction as prescribed by local codes. The resulting assessments can be compared to pre-construction assessments to substantiate claims of new damage, help determine whether the damage resulted from or was exacerbated by the construction, and facilitate settlement of any disputes if damage is discovered.