LEED-ND revisions open to second public comment

CNU calls on new urbanists to review and comment on the latest draft of the rating system by June 14.

We new urbanists know that details matter. That’s certainly true of the latest version of the CNU, US Green Building Council (USGBC), and Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) joint effort to improve community building. Last winter, the three partners asked members and the general public to comment on the previous draft of the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system. Over 5,000 comments were received during this first public comment period. The partner organizations reviewed the comments and just finished an intense, 4-month editing process, making a number of revisions based on commentors’ recommendations.
All of the comments and responses are posted on USGBC’s website. Many of the comments focused on the prerequisites. Unlike the situation with optional credits, prerequisites must be met in order for a project to be certified. For example, the Walkable Streets prerequisite and credit (NPD P1 and C1) received a range of comments, many of which supported their inclusion and identified areas for improvement. Victor Dover, LEED-ND Core Committee member and CNU Board Member, worked to refine both the prerequisite and the credit. “In LEED-ND,” he said, “creating walkable streets finally gets recognized as an essential energy-saving environmental advance.”
The subsequent draft is now in a second public comment period. The public has until June 14 to submit opinions on changes made since the first comment period. Later this summer, the final rating system will be balloted by USGBC and CNU members. If approved, the system will go into effect in early fall.
USGBC is hosting the online comment form on its website: usgbc.org. After a simple sign-in, people can comment on specific prerequisites and credits. The core committee will review all comments submitted — the more targeted and concise the recommendation, the better. “I feel the draft is greatly improved, but please feel free to not only criticize but praise the revisions made,” said John Norquist, CEO and President of CNU. Since CNU is a smaller organization than the others, participation by members is that much more important to ensure that new urbanists’ perspectives continue to be strongly represented in the rating system.
The draft consists of a total of 57 prerequisites and credits, 51 of which (those that have been significantly changed based on advice from the public and experience from the pilot projects) are open to comment now. “We ask new urbanists to review this work and support the changes made that help recognize high-quality urbanism,” said Susan Mudd, CNU board member and LEED-ND Core Committee co-chair.

Key changes
The following summary highlights a few of the key changes to the rating system since the last draft. For more detail on all the changes, go to CNU’s LEED-ND initiative page at cnu.org/leednd. In addition to the latest draft, pilot projects, and information on how to comment, the website highlights specific credits and explains a bit of their evolution.
Connectivity: LEED-ND still measures connectivity by the number of intersections per square mile, but specific requirements have been streamlined. In addition, thresholds for various prerequisites and credits were revised. Here is a sample of those changes:
•    Infill Site Definition: Street connectivity was added as a fourth compliance path to qualify as an infill site if the surrounding land within 1/2 mile of the project boundary has a pre-project connectivity of at least 140 intersections/sq. mi.
•    Smart Location & Linkage (SLL) p1: Option 2: Adjacent site with connectivity. This option was changed to require the street connectivity of adjacent development to be at least 90 intersections per square mile within a half-mile of a continuous segment of at least 25 percent of the project boundary (see plan on page 18). Previously, this was set at 150 intersections/square mile within a quarter mile radius of a midpoint location.
•    Connected and Open Community, Neighborhood Pattern & Design (NPD) p3: Option 1: Projects with internal streets must have an internal connectivity of at least 140 intersections per square mile; it was previously 150 intersections per square mile.
Smart Location, SLL p1: This prerequisite was combined with SLL p2, which covered proximity to water and wastewater infrastructure. The project must be located on a site already served by publicly owned water and wastewater infrastructure or within a legally adopted, publicly owned planned infrastructure service area. There are now four compliance paths — down from five in the early draft. The are: infill sites, adjacent sites with connectivity, transit corridors with adequate transit service, and sites with nearby neighborhood assets. Each of these options has been significantly updated, especially Option 3 on transit corridors, based on feedback from APTA and Reconnecting America.
Wetland and Water Body Conservation, SLL p3: This prerequisite was revised to clarify its relationship with federal, state, and local laws and add further definition of what can take place within buffer areas. The prerequisite provides two compliance paths, down from three in the previous draft. The first option is to locate the project so that there are no wetlands, water bodies, or buffer areas within the site boundaries. The second option is for projects with wetlands, water bodies, or buffer areas, and allows a specific percentage of land to be affected, based on the residential and non-residential density as long as one point is earned under Stormwater Management, GIB c7. The relationship between the degree of impact within a buffer area and the level of residential and nonresidential density was fine-tuned and now allows projects to use a variable buffer width, with a minimum width, to allow for more design flexibility. For all projects, further definition was added to what is considered a wetland, water body, or buffer land that must be protected for the purposes of this prerequisite.
Agricultural Land Conservation, SLL p4: The intent of this prerequisite now emphasizes the preservation of irreplaceable agricultural resources by protecting prime and unique farm and forest lands from development. Five compliance paths still remain: locate the project in one of 4 areas (a site with no prime or unique soils, an infill site, a site served by transit, or a site within a development rights receiving area) or mitigate the loss of prime or unique soils, increase development density, or combine mitigation with increased density. The fifth option represents the largest change to this prerequisite. Originally designed to accommodate areas of the country possessing a large volume of prime soils, this option now applies to all sites possessing prime or unique soils.
For projects where only option 5 applies, they will need to either build more densely than the ND minimum threshold of 7 du/acre or mitigate, via the purchase of conservation easements off-site, or a combination of the two. The requirements were tailored for Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) above and below 250,000 people in recognition of differing market demands. In MSAs of more than 250,000, projects with residential densities above 13 du/acre and nonresidential densities above 1.0 floor-area ratio (FAR) do not have to purchase conservation easements. In MSAs with fewer than 250,000 people, projects with residential densities above 10 du/acre and non-residential densities above 0.75 FAR are not required to purchase conservation easements. The mitigation requirement increases for projects that are less dense. For projects with minimum residential densities just above 7 du/acre and non-residential densities just above 0.5 FAR, conservation easements must be purchased for two acres for every one acre of prime soil developed. All off-site mitigation needs to be located within 100 miles of the project.  Up to 15 percent of the land containing prime soils can be dedicated to community gardens and exempted from the density requirements as well as count toward any mitigation requirement. Said core committee member Doug Farr: “While a seemingly small change, this clause provides support for the growing member interest in agricultural urbanism.”
Compact Development, NPD p2: This prerequisite continues to recognize the inherent connection between density and transit performance. In the previous draft, the density threshold for projects meeting specific transit service levels was bumped up to 12 du/acre and 0.80 FAR. The section was revised so that projects with significant transit service have to meet the higher density threshold only within the specified walking distance of transit. The lower threshold of 7 du/acre and 0.50 FAR applies outside the walking distance area. This helps larger projects in which not all of the development is within walking distance of transit. For all other projects, the density minimum remains at 7 du/acre and 0.50 FAR.
Mixed-Use Neighborhood Centers, NPD c3: The changes to this credit, formerly called “Diversity of Uses,” embed into LEED-ND the concept of the traditional neighborhood with an identifiable center. This same credit also defines a Regional Center, another key element of the rural-urban transect of place types.
For more information, go to CNU’s LEED-ND page at cnu.org/leednd