My maintenance supervisor has been working with the HUD provided PNA tool and has it  about 90% figured out. He reports "The initial creation of the local profile and data inputs are fairly straight forward. However, the gathering of the information and the actual input will be quite an onerous task. One area that may be an issue, is the pricing for the all of items that may be applicable. The tool provides for three options: Bids/Quotes, PHA Estimates, and RSmeans. While quotes and estimates would be acceptable for a few items, the resources required to gather this information on a broad scale, are not available to us. RS Means is a compilation of comprehensive construction cost data. For a price. The subscriptions I have found that would possibly suit our needs are at least $ 400.00.  It may be possible that another PHA already has this tool, or it’s available to us through HUD?"  What are other PHA's doing with this? 

I have done nothing on this-- Is this the Physical Needs Assessment? Are we supposed to do it ourselves or hire an architect to do it? My last one was done by my architect. Pat

We are currently taking on this task ourselves. The PNA Model took a bit to figure out, but now that we have it, it is actually pretty useful. We have taken the approach to mirror our last PNA that was contracted out, in that we are looking to at least get the same amount of information within this tool. You could go way overboard, but my approach is... if HUD accepted our last PNA model, then they should accept this one as well. What is nice about it is that once it is comlpete, the next time will be extremely easy as you will be able to save all of your information and just make adjustments where necessary. This will also save you money by not having to have a consultant do the work for you. As to the question if you need to hire a consultant. The way I read it is that we are approved to do this ourselves if we have in house experienced people. In our case both myself and my CFP Coordinator are Architects and have worked in the construction field for many years, so we may have the upper hand.