Buffalo Site Work, Sequenced From the First Silt Fence to Seed

The order of operations on a site, and why it rarely changes

Almost every site we work on follows the same sequence. Change the order and you usually end up paying for something twice.

1. Controls first. Silt fence on the downhill sides, a stone entrance where trucks come and go, and protection on any storm inlets nearby.
2. Clear and grub. Trees, brush, stumps and roots come out of the work area, and land clearing with a forestry mulcher handles ground that only needs to be opened up.
3. Strip topsoil. It gets scraped off everywhere that will be cut, filled or built on, and piled where no truck will run over it.
4. Cut, fill and pads. High ground moves to low ground until the lot matches the grading plan, then building pads are compacted.
5. Lines in the ground. Water, sewer, storm and conduit go in while trenches can still be dug through loose ground instead of finished stone. That part is our underground utilities work.
6. Base and rough grade. Stone for drives and parking, then the whole lot shaped to drain.
7. Finish grade and cover. Saved topsoil goes back, finish grading sets the final pitch, and hydroseeding gets roots holding the surface.

Foundations usually drop in between the pads and the utilities, and weather can shuffle a step or two. The logic holds either way: nothing gets built on top of work that still has to be dug up.

Infill lots: building where an old house or plant once stood

Much of the site work inside the City of Buffalo begins on ground where something already stood. The USDA soil survey for Erie County describes the built-up ground in and around Buffalo as an “Urban land” unit where very little of the original undisturbed soil remains, and it notes that most new development there is taking place where old buildings have been demolished.

That history stays in the lot. The same survey describes landfills where several feet of fill were spread over marshes and flood plains, and says the soils under paved urban ground couldn't practically be identified, so careful on-site investigation is needed. Where native soil survives, it's often one formed in clayey lake-laid sediment, such as Schoharie, Cayuga or Odessa. The survey rates the leftover patches of Odessa soil poorly suited to building: they're small, seasonally wet and low in strength, and from December through May water sits perched just below the surface layer.

In practice, a city infill lot often means digging out old foundation walls, basement rubble and whatever was pushed into the hole after an earlier demolition, then replacing it with compacted fill where the new building will bear. When your engineer wants to see the ground, we open test pits so they can. New footings then sit on material somebody has actually looked at, which is what our foundation and basement prep depends on.

Cut, fill, and the ground that should stay loose

A grading plan sets a finished elevation for every part of the lot. Balancing cut and fill means moving your own high ground into your own low ground so as little dirt as possible rides a truck in either direction. Soil doesn't trade one-for-one, though. A yard of clay dug from the bank takes up more room loose in a truck bed and less once it's compacted, so we figure that swing before deciding what stays and what goes.

Not every bucket of spoil is good fill. Topsoil never goes under a pad or pavement, because its organic matter compresses and breaks down over time. Wet lake clay won't reach density no matter how long it's rolled, so it dries out, goes to a lawn area or leaves the site, and your engineer may call for imported stone or structural fill under footings and slabs anyway.

The state's construction stormwater permit draws a useful line here. It tells builders to minimize soil compaction except where an area's purpose calls for it, and to preserve enough topsoil to restore the soil and grow dense cover. So we compact in thin lifts under buildings, driveways and parking lots, and keep machines off future lawn and rain garden areas, or rip them loose before topsoil goes back.

Quarter acre in Buffalo, one acre statewide: stormwater lines

Two different size limits decide how much stormwater paperwork a project carries. Inside the city, the Unified Development Ordinance, known as the Green Code, requires a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) prepared to Buffalo Sewer Authority requirements once land development disturbs one-quarter acre (10,890 square feet), or less than that as part of a larger plan. The SWPPP is completed during site plan review and stamped by a New York State professional engineer or registered landscape architect. Smaller projects still have to manage runoff; they just skip the formal plan.

Buffalo Sewer's review guidance asks for a site and utility plan, a grading plan, a landscape plan and an erosion and sediment control plan. Where runoff goes to a combined or storm relief sewer, the project has to show that its peak flow in a 25-year storm after construction will be less than the site's peak flow in a 2-year storm before it. The city prefers green infrastructure such as rain gardens, vegetated swales and porous pavement. When contamination, high groundwater, shallow bedrock or poor infiltration rule those out, Buffalo Sewer can consider off-site green infrastructure or underground storage instead.

Statewide, DEC's general permit GP-0-25-001, in effect from January 29, 2025 through January 28, 2030, applies once a project disturbs an acre or more. Where the local government is itself a regulated storm sewer (MS4) operator, its signed SWPPP acceptance form, or a no-jurisdiction form, has to be in hand before the state filing, so ask the local building or engineering office early. We then build the swales, basins and storm drainage the approved plan shows.

What a state-permitted site looks like from week to week

Once a site is covered by the state permit, compliance becomes routine. Apart from some single-family home and small subdivision jobs, a qualified inspector has to walk the site at least once every seven calendar days while soil is being disturbed, checking each erosion control, every area not yet stabilized and each point where water leaves the property. Copies of the permit and the SWPPP stay on site somewhere secure, like a job trailer or a locked mailbox.

The permit also puts a check on open ground. Disturbing more than five acres at one time takes a written request and a written authorization letter, from DEC or from the local MS4 when it holds review authority, and the permit tells operators to keep exposed soil to a minimum. That's why bigger projects get phased: clear, strip and grade one section, stabilize it, then open the next. Water pumped out of trenches and excavations has to be managed through a control, such as a sediment trap or filter bag, rather than sent straight off the site.

A few definitions change how people plan. The permit counts compacted gravel drives and parking areas as impervious, the same as asphalt, so a stone lot isn't a way around stormwater sizing. Coverage doesn't end until disturbed ground reaches final stabilization, meaning even, perennial growth with 80 percent density across every unpaved surface, or a substitute such as stone or mulch. If work stops for winter and every disturbed area has temporary cover, inspections can drop to once every 30 days after the owner notifies DEC or the local stormwater authority.