59A-26.017. Plans Submission and Fee Requirements

(1) No construction work, including demolition, shall be started until prior written approval has been provided by the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction. This includes all construction of new facilities and all additions, modifications, alterations, renovations, and refurbishing to the site, facility, equipment or systems of all existing facilities.

(2) Approval to start construction only for demolition, site work, foundation, and building structural frame may be obtained prior to construction document approval when the following is submitted for review and has been approved by the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction:

(a) Preliminary Stage II approval letter from the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction;

(b) Construction documents and specifications for all work to be undertaken;

(c) A letter from the licensee holding the Agency harmless for any changes that may occur to the project as a result of the final construction document review; and,

(d) A life safety plan indicating temporary egress and detailed phasing plans indicating how the area(s) to be demolished or constructed is to be separated from all occupied areas must be submitted for review and approval when demolition or construction in and around occupied buildings is planned.

(3) Projects that have been submitted for the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction review will be considered abandoned if:

(a) Construction has not begun within one year after written approval of the construction documents from the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction;

(b) No further plans have been submitted for Agency review within one year after a project has been initiated with the Office of Plans and Construction, or

(c) Construction has been halted for more than one year. After this termination, resubmission as a new project will be required.

(4) When construction is planned, either for new buildings, additions, alterations or renovations to existing buildings, the plans and specifications must be prepared and submitted to the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction for approval by a Florida registered architect and a Florida registered professional engineer. An architecture or engineering firm, not practicing as a sole proprietor, must provide proof of registration as an architecture or engineering firm with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

(5) The initial submission of plans to the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction for any new project must include a completed Application for Plan Review, AHCA Form 3500-0011, June 2014, incorporated by reference and obtainable at http://www.flrules.org/Gateway/reference.asp?No=Ref-05456 or from the Agency for Health Care Administration, 2727 Mahan Drive, Mail Stop 24, Tallahassee, Florida 32308, or from the Agency’s website at http://ahca.myflorida.com/plansandconstruction, and a valid certificate of need, if required pursuant to Chapter 408, F.S. This information must accompany the initial submission. Approval will not be granted for any project without a Certificate of Need as required by Rule 59C-1.004, F.A.C.

(6) Plans and specifications submitted for review shall be subject to a plan review fee pursuant to Section 400.967(5), F.S. A non-refundable initial fee of $2,000 will be charged for all projects. The Agency will also collect a fee, not to exceed one percent of the estimated construction cost or the actual cost of review, whichever is less, for the portion of the review which encompasses initial review through the initial revised construction document review. Additionally, the Agency will collect its actual costs on all subsequent portions of the review and construction inspections. All fees must be paid to the Agency for Health Care Administration, with notation of the Office of Plans and Construction facility log number, and identified that it is for the Agency’s Health Care Trust Fund. Plan review fees must be included with the application.

(7) Plans and specifications shall be submitted in three stages of development described in this rule. Approval of a Stage III submission is required to begin construction (except as permitted by subsection 59A-26.017(2), F.A.C.). These stages are as follows:

(a) Stage I, schematic plans.

(b) Stage II, preliminary plans or design development drawings.

(c) Stage III, construction documents, including specifications, addenda and change orders.

(8) For each stage of submission a functional program or project narrative must be submitted. It must consist of a detailed word description of all contemplated work and any required phasing to be provided in the proposed construction.

(9) For projects involving only equipment changes or system renovations, construction documents must be submitted. These documents must include the following:

(a) Life safety plans showing the fire/smoke compartments in the area of renovation;

(b) Detailed phasing plans indicating how the new work will be separated from all occupied areas; and,

(c) Engineering plans and specifications for all of the required work.

(10) Stage I, schematic plans must include:

(a) Single-line drawings of each floor showing the relationship of the various activities or services to each other and the room arrangement in each, which shall include:

1. The function of each room or space must be noted in or near the room or space;

2. The proposed roads and walkways, service and entrance courts, parking, and orientation must be shown on either a small plot plan or on the first floor plan;

3. A simple cross-section diagram showing the anticipated construction;

4. A schematic life safety plan showing smoke and fire compartments, exits, exit passageways, and gross areas of smoke and fire compartments; and,

5. Information as to which areas are sprinklered, both new and existing.

(b) The facility and general arrangement of other buildings, if the proposed construction is an addition or is otherwise related to existing buildings on the site.

(c) A schedule showing the total number of beds, types of bedrooms and types of ancillary spaces.

(11) Stage II preliminary plans will be approved by the Agency upon successful demonstration that the construction will comply with applicable life safety code requirements, flood requirements and that the layout will accommodate all required functional space as evidenced by a thorough examination of documents submitted as required by this subsection. Stage II, preliminary plans must include:

(a) A vicinity map. For new facility construction a vicinity map shall include the major local highway intersections.

(b) Site development plans that include:

1. Existing grades and proposed improvements as required by the schematic submission;

2. Building locating dimensions;

3. Site elevations for both the 100-year flood elevations and hurricane Category 3 surge inundation elevations if the project involves the construction of a new facility or is a new addition of a wing or floor to a facility; and,

4. The location of the fire protection services water source to the building.

(c) Architectural plans that include:

1. Floor plans, 1/8-inch scale minimum, showing door swings, windows, casework and millwork, fixed equipment and plumbing fixtures. Floor plans shall indicate the function of each space;

2. A large-scale plan of typical new bedrooms with a tabulation of gross and net square footage of each bedroom including a tabulation of the size of the bedroom window glass;

3. Typical large-scale interior and exterior wall sections to include typical rated fire and fire/smoke partitions and a typical corridor partition;

4. All exterior building elevations;

5. Equipment which is not included in the construction contract that requires mechanical or electrical service connections or construction modifications shall be identified to ensure coordination with the architectural, mechanical and electrical phases of construction; and,

6. Preliminary phasing plans indicating how the project is to be separated from all occupied areas must be provided if the project is located in an occupied facility.

(d) Life safety plans that include:

1. Single-sheet floor plans showing fire and smoke compartmentation, all means of egress and all exit signs. Additionally, depict and provide the longest path of travel in each smoke compartment to the door(s) to the adjoining compartment, calculate the total area of the smoke compartment in square feet, and tabulate exit inches;

2. All sprinklered areas, fire extinguishers, fire alarm devices and pull station locations;

3. Fully developed life safety plans if the project is an addition to or the conversion of an existing building;

4. Life safety plans of the floor being renovated and the required exit egress floor(s) if the project is a renovation in an existing building; and,

5. A life safety plan indicating temporary egress and detailed phasing plans indicating how the area(s) to be demolished or constructed are to be separated from all occupied areas when demolition or construction in and around occupied buildings is to be undertaken.

(e) Mechanical engineering plans that include:

1. Single-sheet floor plans with a one-line diagram of the ventilating system with relative pressures of each space;

2. A written description and drawings of the anticipated smoke control system, passive or active, and a sequence of operation correlated with the life safety plans;

3. The general location of all fire and smoke dampers, all duct smoke detectors and firestats;

4. If the building is equipped with fire sprinklers, the location of the sprinkler system risers and the point of connection for the fire sprinkler system. State the method of design for the existing and new fire sprinkler systems;

5. Locations of all plumbing fixtures and other items of equipment requiring plumbing services and/or gas services;

6. Locations of all medical gas outlets, piping distribution risers, terminals, alarm panel(s), low pressure emergency oxygen connection, isolation/zone valve(s), and gas source location(s);

7. Locations and relative sizes of major items of mechanical equipment such as chillers, air handling units, fire pumps, medical gas storage, boilers, vacuum pumps, air compressors, and fuel storage vessels;

8. Locations of hazardous areas and the volume of products to be contained therein; and,

9. Location of fire pump, stand pipes, and sprinkler riser(s).

(f) Electrical engineering drawings that include:

1. A one-line diagram of normal and essential electrical power systems showing service transformers and entrances, switchboards, transfer switches, distribution feeders and over-current devices, panel boards and step-down transformers. The diagram must include a preliminary listing and description of new and existing, normal and emergency loads, preliminary estimates of available short-circuit current at all new equipment and existing equipment serving any new equipment, short-circuit and withstand ratings of existing equipment serving new loads and any new or revised grounding requirements; and,

2. Fire alarm zones correlated with the life safety plan.

(g) Outline specifications that include a general description of the construction, including construction classification and ratings of components, interior finishes, general types and locations of acoustical material, floor coverings, electrical equipment, ventilating equipment and plumbing fixtures, fire protection equipment, and medical gas equipment.

(h) The general layout of spaces of the existing structure with the preliminary plans for the proposed facility whenever an existing structure is to be converted to an ICF/DD facility.

(i) The general layout of spaces of the facility whenever additions, modifications, alterations, renovations, and refurbishing to a facility are proposed.

(12) Stage III, construction documents. Stage III construction documents will be approved by the Agency upon successful demonstration that the construction will comply with all applicable codes and standards as evidenced by a thorough examination of documents submitted as required by this subsection.

(a) The Stage III, construction documents must be an extension of the Stage II, preliminary plan submission and must provide a complete description of the contemplated construction. Construction documents must be signed, sealed, dated and submitted for written approval to the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction by a Florida-registered architect and Florida-registered professional engineer. These documents must consist of work related to civil, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering, fire protection, lightning protection, landscape architecture and all architectural work. In addition to the requirements for Stage II submission, the following must be incorporated into the construction documents:

1. Site and civil engineering plans that indicate building and site elevations, site utilities, paving plans, grading and drainage plans and details, locations of the two fire hydrants utilized to perform the water supply flow test, and landscaping plans;

2. Life safety plans for the entire project;

3. Architectural plans that include:

a. Typical large-scale details of all typical interior and exterior walls and smoke walls, horizontal exits and exit passageways;

b. Comprehensive ceiling plans that show all utilities, lighting fixtures, smoke detectors, ventilation devices, sprinkler head locations and fire-rated ceiling suspension member locations where applicable;

c. Floor/ceiling and roof/ceiling assembly descriptions for all conditions; and,

d. Details and other instructions to the contractor on the construction documents describing the techniques to be used to seal floor construction penetrations to the extent necessary to prevent smoke migration from floor to floor during a fire.

4. Structural engineering plans, schedules and details;

5. Mechanical engineering plans to include fire and smoke control plans that include:

a. All items of owner furnished equipment requiring mechanical services;

b. A clear and concise narrative control sequence of operations for each item of mechanical equipment, air conditioning, heating, ventilation, medical gas, plumbing, and fire protection and any interconnection of the equipment of the systems;

c. Mechanical engineering drawings that depict completely the systems to be utilized, whether new or existing, from the point of system origination to its termination;

d. A tabular schedule giving the required air flow (as computed from the information contained on the ventilation rate table) in cubic feet per minute (cfm) for supply, return, exhaust, outdoor, and ventilation air for each space listed or referenced by note on the ventilation rate table as shown on the architectural documents. The schedule must also contain the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system design air flow rates and the resulting space relative pressures; and,

e. The schedule or portion of the schedule, as applicable, which must be placed in the specifications or in the drawing set containing the spaces depicted.

6. Fire protection plans, where applicable, that must include the existing system as necessary to define the new work;

7. Electrical engineering plans that must describe complete power, lighting, alarm, communications and lightning protection systems and power system study;

8. A power study that must include a fault study complete with calculations to demonstrate that over-current devices, transfer switches, switchboards, panel boards, motor controls, transformers and feeders are adequately sized to safely withstand available phase-to-phase and phase-to-ground faults. The study must also include an analysis of generator performance under fault conditions and a coordination study resulting in the tabulation of settings for all over-current device adjustable trips, time delays, relays and ground fault coordination. This must be provided for all new equipment and existing equipment serving any new equipment. Power studies for renovations of existing distribution systems must include only new equipment and existing equipment upstream to the normal and emergency sources of the new equipment. Renovations involving only branch circuit panel boards without modifications to the feeder must not require a full power study; instead, the power study must be limited to the calculation of new and existing loads of the branch circuit panel; and,

9. A complete set of specifications for all work to be undertaken.

a. All project required contractor supplied testing and/or certification reports shall be submitted in writing reviewed, and accepted by the engineer of record prior to presenting to the Agency for Health Care Administration for review.

b. The specifications shall require a performance verification test and balance air quantity values report with the specified air filters installed for each air handling unit system operating in the minimum pressure drop condition (clean filter state) and at the maximum pressure drop condition (dirty filter state). The air quantities reported are acceptable if they are within 10 percent of the design value and the space relative pressures are maintained. This requirement must apply to any air-handling unit affected by the construction to be performed.

(b) All construction documents must be coordinated to provide consistency of design intent throughout the documents. It is specifically required that in the case of additions to facilities, the mechanical and electrical, especially existing essential electrical systems and all other pertinent conditions, must be a part of this submission.

(c) Signed, sealed and dated subsequent addenda, change orders, field orders and other documents altering the above must be submitted for review to the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction. The Agency will either approve or disapprove the submission based on compliance with all applicable codes and standards and shall provide a listing of deficiencies in writing.

(13) The initial submission will be acted upon by the Agency’s Office of Plans and Construction within 60 days of the receipt of the initial payment of the plan review fee. The Agency will either approve or disapprove the submission and shall provide a listing of deficiencies in writing. Each subsequent resubmission of documents for review on the project will initiate another 60-day response period. All deficiencies noted by the Agency must be satisfactorily corrected before final approval may be obtained for the project.

(14) Additions that increase the scope of the project by greater than fifty percent or revisions that change greater than fifty percent of the original scope of a project will be required to be submitted as a new project.

Rulemaking Authority 400.967 FS. Law Implemented 400.967(2), (5) FS. History–New 1-25-17.