July 3, 2026·8 min read

Construction Documents Checklist for Landscape Architects

A detailed construction documents checklist for landscape architecture firms—covering drawings, specs, and coordination to reduce RFIs and contractor errors.

Missing a keynote on your planting plan or shipping specs that don't match your drawing callouts will cost you—in RFIs, change orders, and contractor phone calls at 7am. This checklist covers what a complete construction documents package looks like for a landscape architecture project, where firms consistently drop the ball, and how to build a review process that catches errors before they leave your office.

What "Complete" Actually Means in a CD Package

A complete CD set isn't just drawings. It's drawings, specifications, and a schedule set that are internally consistent and coordinated with the civil, architectural, and MEP packages. Contractors bid off your documents. If your irrigation legend says "1-inch mainline" and your detail says "1.5-inch," someone is pricing the wrong thing. The cost of that ambiguity lands on the owner—or on you if it's a design error.

For a typical commercial or institutional landscape project, expect your CD package to include: a cover sheet with drawing index and project data, existing conditions/demo plan, layout and grading plans, planting plan with plant schedule, irrigation plan with water budget, site details, and a Division 32 specification. Larger projects add lighting plans, hardscape enlargements, and stormwater management details. Smaller residential projects can compress this, but the coordination requirements don't disappear.

Cover Sheet and Drawing Index

The cover sheet is the first thing a plan checker or contractor reads. It needs the project name, address, APN, applicable codes (IBC, local grading ordinance, MWELO if in California), sheet list, revision block, and consultant contact list. Firms skip the consultant list constantly. When a contractor needs to call the civil engineer about a grading conflict, they shouldn't have to dig through a bid set to find a phone number.

Your drawing index should match your actual sheet set exactly. A sheet listed in the index that isn't in the set—or a sheet in the set that isn't indexed—fails a plan check and signals to the contractor that your documents aren't coordinated.

Grading and Layout Plans

Layout Plan Requirements

Your layout plan needs to show all hardscape dimensions, control points tied to a benchmark or property corner, and material callouts that match your spec sections. If you're using CSI MasterFormat, Division 32 covers exterior improvements—32 12 00 for flexible paving, 32 13 00 for rigid paving, 32 14 00 for unit masonry. Your plan callouts should reference these section numbers, not just say "concrete paving."

Spot elevations at all ADA-critical locations are non-negotiable. The 2010 ADA Standards require running slopes no greater than 1:20 (5%) and cross slopes no greater than 1:50 (2%) on accessible routes. Put those spot elevations on the plan, not just in a note.

Grading Plan Requirements

Show existing and proposed contours at 1-foot intervals minimum for slopes under 10%. Call out all drainage swales, area drains, and outlet structures with invert elevations. Coordinate your finish grades with the civil's grading plan—a 0.1-foot discrepancy at a building pad edge causes a real problem in the field.

Element	Minimum Requirement
Contour interval (flat site)	1 foot
Spot elevations at ADA routes	Every 50 LF or at grade breaks
Drainage arrows	At all paved areas
Benchmark reference	One per plan sheet
Coordination note	Civil drawing cross-reference

Planting Plan and Plant Schedule

Your planting plan and plant schedule have to agree on every species, size, and quantity. This sounds obvious. In practice, firms revise the plan in the final week and forget to update the schedule. A contractor who bids 47 Cercis occidentalis at 5-gallon and finds 52 on the plan has a legitimate change order claim.

The plant schedule should include: botanical name, common name, container size, mature height and spread, spacing, quantity, and remarks (staking requirements, root barrier requirements, etc.). For California projects, flag WUCOLS plant factor and hydrozone assignment in the schedule—you'll need it for your MWELO water budget documentation.

Do a quantity takeoff on the plan as a final check. Count polygons and spot plants manually or use your CAD/BIM tool's count function. If your schedule says 47 and your plan shows 52, fix it before it ships.

Irrigation Plan and Water Budget

The irrigation plan is where landscape CDs most often fail plan check on the first submission. For any California project subject to MWELO (Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance), you need a Water Efficient Landscape Worksheet showing your ETWU (estimated total water use) doesn't exceed your MAWA (maximum applied water allowance). The formula:

MAWA = (ETo × 0.62) × [(0.7 × LA) + (0.3 × SLA)]

Where ETo is reference evapotranspiration in inches, LA is landscape area in square feet, and SLA is special landscape area. If your ETWU exceeds MAWA, you don't have a compliant design—revise plant selection or irrigation zones before submitting.

Beyond compliance, your irrigation plan needs: a point of connection detail with backflow preventer specification, mainline and lateral sizing calculations (or a note that the contractor provides hydraulic calculations), controller schedule, and head layout with radius and precipitation rate callouts. Specify the controller by manufacturer and model number. "Smart controller with ET adjustment" is not a spec—it's a wish.

Site Details and Specifications

Detail Sheet Checklist

Every condition that a contractor could reasonably build wrong needs a detail. That includes: tree pit and staking detail, shrub planting detail, sod/seed edge condition, paving edge restraint, curb and gutter type, wall footing (if you're detailing walls), and any custom site furniture or feature. If you're specifying a permeable paver system, detail the aggregate base section with layer depths and compaction requirements.

Details need to reference the spec section they correspond to. A concrete paving detail without a reference to Section 32 13 13 (Concrete Paving) creates a coordination gap.

Specification Checklist

For a standard commercial landscape project, your Division 32 spec should cover at minimum:

32 01 90 – Landscape Maintenance (if owner-directed)
32 12 16 – Asphalt Paving (if applicable)
32 13 13 – Concrete Paving
32 14 13 – Precast Concrete Unit Paving
32 84 23 – Underground Irrigation
32 90 00 – Planting
32 92 00 – Turf and Grasses

Pull your specs from a master template, not from a previous project. Copying specs from old jobs is how you end up with a product substitution clause that references a manufacturer who went out of business in 2019.

Interdisciplinary Coordination Checklist

This is where projects bleed money. Your CDs don't exist in isolation—they have to coordinate with civil, architectural, structural, and MEP.

Before final submission, verify:

Your finish grades match the civil grading plan at all shared edges
Your tree locations don't conflict with underground utilities (call 811 requirements should be noted on the plan)
Your irrigation sleeves are shown under all paved areas where the civil shows paving
Your site lighting layout is coordinated with the electrical engineer's plan
Your planting doesn't conflict with sight-line triangles shown on the civil

A 30-minute coordination call with your civil and MEP engineers in the final week of CDs catches 80% of these conflicts. Schedule it as a hard deliverable, not an optional check-in.

Common Mistakes Firms Make

Shipping specs that don't match the drawings. The spec says 24-inch box trees; the plan says 15-gallon. Contractors will price the cheaper option and submit an RFI. You'll lose the time and potentially the design intent.

No revision cloud discipline. If you're issuing an addendum or revised set, every change needs a revision cloud and a delta marker tied to the revision block. Contractors working from a previous set need to find changes instantly. Unmarked changes in reissued sets are a liability problem.

Skipping the quantity check. Designers trust their CAD blocks. Blocks get deleted, duplicated, or moved without the schedule updating. A manual count before final submission takes 20 minutes and saves a change order.

Under-specifying irrigation controllers. "Wi-Fi enabled smart controller" is not a specification. Name the manufacturer, model series, and minimum station count. Hunter, Rain Bird, and Weathermatic all make WUCOLS-compatible ET-based controllers—pick one and specify it.

Not coordinating ADA paths with grading. A path shown on the layout plan at 4.5% slope that the civil grades at 5.2% fails ADA. Check the grading plan against every accessible route before final submission.

Issuing details that don't match local standards. Curb types, concrete mix designs, and compaction standards vary by municipality. Using a generic detail from a previous project in a different jurisdiction creates a conflict with the geotech report or local standard drawings.

How Phasewise Handles This

Phasewise lets you attach a phase-specific task checklist directly to the CD phase of a project, so the items above become tracked deliverables—not a PDF someone has to remember to open. The most relevant feature here is phase task tracking: you can build a CD checklist template once and apply it to every new project, with assignees and due dates tied to your submission milestone. For firms managing multiple active CD packages simultaneously, the project dashboard shows which checklist items are open across all projects, so nothing ships incomplete.