SAFETY Act building guidelines available

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Office of SAFETY Act Implementation (OSAI) have helped develop guidelines to aid building owners with operations evaluations.

The entities have partnered with the National Institute of Building Sciences to develop a set of best practices and a new online tool, Best Practices for Anti-Terrorism Security (BPATS). The overarching goal is helping building owners evaluate their operations end-to-end before applying for SAFETY Act protections.

“With BPATS, our goal was to develop a comprehensive tool that security professionals could use to assess the anti-terrorism security of commercial office buildings,” Bruce Davidson, director of S&T OSAI, said. “The output from their BPATS assessment should enable building leadership to take steps to enhance their building’s security and provide the foundation for a well-structured follow-on SAFETY Act application.”

The provisions can be used with the assessment tool, delivering a checklist for commercial facilities to improve the quality of their applications and reduce the number of building owners needing to re‑submit applications due to gaps found during evaluations.

Last year OSAI conducted several pilot tests to identify the best practices every building owner and security professional should address, noting the pilot tests were in six commercial buildings, located in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Denver.