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Not a general engineering practice that also files permits. Getting projects approved — NPDES above all, plus erosion and sediment control, land development, sewage and highway occupancy — is the practice, and we're organized into dedicated teams around it.
01 — How we're set up
Work is split by market and by discipline, with our own field crews rather than subcontracted ones. The people on your project do this particular kind of work all the time.
Farm buildings and the compliance planning that goes with them — manure storages, animal housing, feed structures and shops, alongside Act 38 nutrient management, manure and odor plans, agricultural E&S and CAFO permitting. Because the same team sees both, the building and the plans agree with each other instead of contradicting each other.
Site plans, land development submissions, subdivisions and the municipal review process — contractor shops, storage buildings, offices, fire halls, and farm buildings changing to commercial use.
The first phase of a project: establishing exactly which approvals a property needs, what stands in the way and what the route to approval costs. It is real work and we charge for it — and it is frequently the most valuable phase, because it occasionally ends with us saying the project isn't worth pursuing.
Grading and stormwater design, erosion and sediment control, permit packages, and the agency coordination that carries them through review — municipal, county conservation district, PA DEP and PennDOT.
Property research, watershed and drainage mapping, and site exhibits — the work that puts a property in context before anybody starts designing on it.
02 — How we work
On a first call we’ll tell you which permitting framework your project falls under and what work of that kind generally runs. What we won’t do is put a firm number on a property we haven’t looked at — anyone who does is either padding it or about to come back for more.
Scoping is the first phase, and it is what produces a real number. From there you get a written scope broken out by task, with agency fees listed separately rather than folded into ours. Fixed-fee proposals are available where the scope is clear enough to price that way.
A first-round comment letter is normal. What matters is what happens next — we answer the comments, resubmit, and keep going until the approval is issued. You aren't handed a review letter and left to work out what it means.
Design, permitting and the agency coordination that follows aren't split between firms. When your contractor hits something unexpected in the field, the answer comes from the same office that drew it.
We'll tell you when you don't need us, when a project isn't worth doing, or when it belongs at a different firm. It's a small industry and being right is worth more than being hired.
03 — Straight answer
Sometimes a large multi-discipline firm is the right call — a project with structural, traffic, environmental and municipal work all running at once, or where a lender or a program requires it. We'll say so when that's the case.
For a manure storage, a barn, a contractor's shop or a small site plan, here's the honest comparison:
| Large multi-office firm | Nye Consulting Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | Usually hourly, with an estimate that can move | Scoped first, then priced against what’s actually there — fixed fee where the work allows it |
| Where your job sits | Your job competes with everything else in the office | Approvals are the whole business, so nothing sits behind something bigger |
| Focus | Permitting is one service among many | Permitting is the practice — NPDES most of all |
| Where small jobs sit | Behind the larger ones | They are the work |
| Field crews | In house, spread across a wide range of project types | In house, on this kind of site every week |
| Range | Every discipline under one roof | Deep in the disciplines this work needs; specialists brought in beyond that |
Being specialized is the point. A team that files NPDES applications every week knows which conservation district wants what, and where a schedule really goes — worth more on a project this size than a structural department you'll never use.
Tell us about it and we’ll outline the permits it needs and what work like this generally runs.