Your materials
Lay out what you brought. Anything missing is a gap in the memo before you have written a word — name it now rather than discovering it in the third paragraph.
What a compliance memo has to do
Assessment criteria
| Criterion | What it means | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | Requirement → evidence → conclusion, in that order, for every point | 30% |
| Precision | Exact figures; no hedging of anything you know | 25% |
| Authority | The limit is cited, not asserted | 25% |
| Honesty | Genuine uncertainty is named, with its effect on the conclusion | 20% |
Note the last criterion. A memo that quietly excludes the artificial turf to make the number look better is not a stronger memo — it is one that falls apart the moment a planner asks. Naming the uncertainty and showing the conclusion holds either way is worth more than a cleaner figure.
Plan the memo
On one sheet, before writing:
- The requirement, with its citation
- The existing figure, by line item and total
- The proposed figure, by line item and total
- The comparison — absolute and proportional
- The conclusion, stated against the limit
- Any classification uncertainty, and the figure both ways
Write the memo
Portfolio piece 7 of 10
Silverwood Drive · impervious surface · addressed to the County
Write the memo you would actually send.
- 250–350 words. Longer usually means you are explaining the design rather than proving compliance.
- Tables are allowed and encouraged — put the line items in a table and the argument in prose.
- Read it aloud before calling it done. Every hedge you hear covering a known figure comes out.
Lesson 1, revisited
Put the four-to-six sentences you wrote in Lesson 1 beside the memo and answer:
- Did the Lesson 1 version reach a stated conclusion, or stop at the numbers?
- Did it cite the limit, or assume it?
- How many hedges were in it? How many are in the memo?
A final check on the unit. Each sentence has one error.
1. The proposed coverage does not exceed to the permitted maximum.
2. Engineering is required unless the wall be over four feet.
3. The design shall account for surcharge unless a wall retains additional load.
4. Impervious surface is reduced to 2,963 SF from 1,209 SF.
5. Proposed impervious surface is around 1,200 SF, so it should comply.
Unit 7 complete
You can now: explain a code requirement, demonstrate whether a design meets it, read a permit stamp and know who each line binds, and hold a compliance argument with a planner who disagrees. That is the B2 can-do statement for this unit, and it is signed off.
Next unit: plan check and revisions — what to do when the correction list arrives, how to log what changed, and how to disagree in writing without losing the job.
Homework before Unit 8. Bring the Silverwood revision set — the stamped one with the dated revisions log. Find the entry that reads “Square Footage Changed” and be ready to say what it conceals.