What does my architect need to design our add-on bathroom and roof deck?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm shopping for an architect to design a ground-floor addition to the rear of our house with a roof deck above it in Albany, CA.  I need my architect to produce the exterior drawings needed to get the design approved by the City of Albany.  Then, I need them to produced detailed construction documents for the building permit.  I will be the general contractor, hire out the electrical, plumbing and foundation and do the rest of the work myself.  I'm looking for exact, detailed construction drawings.  

We had a complete site plan done in AutoCAD back in 1998 and would like to input these files as a baseline to minimize the planning effort.

What should I insist that my architect have for AutoCAD software so that he can create these plans and reuse my old AutoCAD files?

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

Any version of AutoCAD, from the one used to produce your site drawings or newer, should be able to open and use those files as a starting point.

[Anonymous]

THANK YOU, DAVID!

And thank you AutoDesk for making AutoCAD backward compatible to 1998.