On May 20th I had the honor of providing expert testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on the risk implications of applying the DoD Minimum Antiterrorism Standards for GSA lease procurements. The title of the hearing was “Too Much for too Little: Finding the Cost-Risk Balance”
(http://transportation.house.gov/hearings/hearingDetail.aspx?NewsID=1200)
In short, the House is concerned about the cost of providing the large setback distances required by the DoD standards for new facilities housing “back office” DoD operations located within an office park or downtown area with an uncontrolled perimeter. Certainly, the 50 foot setback as required by the ISC is a lot more affordable than a 148 foot conventional standoff required by the DoD.
Personally, I tend to agree that, for DoD facilities housing administrative functions, it is not necessary to provide the same level of protection that we require for our service men and women living and working on military bases.
Of course, now the criteria governing both civilian federal facilities, issued by the Interagency Security Council (ISC), and the DoD standards are in flux. A new ISC document has been issued and a draft version of the DoD document is expected to be issued soon. My understanding is that the new ISC standards are now more in line with the DoD standards which would imply that it may now be more expensive to design new civilian federal buildings under certain circumstances.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on these issues.
Eve Hinman
Hinman Consulting Engineers
