It’s decision time for LEED-ND

Instead of calling for more discussion, LEED organizers want to put the Neighborhood Development program up for a yes-or-no vote.

After five years of preparation and testing, members of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Congress for the New Urbanism may begin balloting in late July, August, or September on whether to authorize a full-fledged LEED-Neighborhood Development program.
If the members vote yes — in balloting that would continue for 30 days — and if the National Resources Defense Council and Smart Growth America concur with the decision, the Green Building Council will for the first time operate a permanent certification program that draws from principles of New Urbanism. As of early July, the starting date for the voting was far from settled. Of the eight rating systems that have been established during LEED’s 11-year history, this would be the first to contain prerequisites that deal with land use and location. The impetus for creating LEED-ND came from urbanists frustrated by the fact that existing LEED programs did nothing to counteract America’s dependence on extensive automobile travel.
The USGBC, in collaboration with CNU and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), launched a pilot LEED-ND program in 2007 which enrolled 238 projects, the vast majority of them in the US. The green-building organization followed up by gathering more than 6,400 suggestions and criticisms during two rounds of public comment on the Neighborhood Development initiative. As a result, LEED-ND has undergone substantial revision, aided by a committee that includes new urbanists such as Doug Farr, Victor Dover, Susan Mudd, John Norquist, and Jessica Millman.
A key question this July was whether the system was ready to be voted on by the member organizations. The USGBC complicated the situation by suggesting still more approval procedures, possibly including a third public comment period and a model approval process governed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). But within the committee, says Farr, “the general consensus was that we wanted to get LEED-ND out on the street and get people able to use it” — without additional waiting. The best way to gauge LEED-ND’s effectiveness and to make further refinements over the next few years is “having people use it,” Farr says.
The ANSI process and a third comment period could delay adoption significantly. The schedule remained unclear as New Urban News went to press.
Each organization will conduct its own vote, using differing procedures. After CNU members vote, “the CNU Board will review the results of the member balloting and give a final yea or nay,” says CNU planning associate Nora Beck. At USGBC, a subset of members, rather than the entire membership, will vote on whether USGBC should approve LEED-ND. At NRDC, the voting will be only by board members. “NRDC has a side agreement with the national coalition Smart Growth America and intends to seek the approval of the boards of both organizations,” says NRDC President Kaid Benfield. Approval by all four groups will be required before the program can be established.

Key changes
To be certified under LEED-ND, a project will have to satisfy a number of prerequisites and also earn points through the inclusion of various features. According to CNU, USGBC, and members of the LEED-ND core committee, some of the most important changes that have been made since the advent of the pilot program are these:
Emphasis on walkability: The rating system’s “walkability details” were given additional points during the revision process, Dover says. “Things that new urbanists find very important get more points.” For example, a project will win a point if it has tree-lined streets. Tree-lined streets “used to be buried in another list of items,” Dover says. “Now it stands on its own.”
The walkable-streets prerequisite has been modified. It mandates that principal building entrances face public spaces such as streets and plazas — not parking lots. The prerequisite sets a minimum building-height-to-street-width ratio of 1:3. It also requires continuous sidewalks on both sides of 90 percent of the streets in a project, and it forbids garage openings and service bays from dominating street frontages.
Smart locations: The number of ways for a project to qualify as a “smart location” has been expanded. This reflects the fact that “new urbanists are working in many different contexts,” Dover says. A project can be judged as having a smart location because, for example, the site was previously developed, or it is surrounded by development on 75 percent or more of its perimeter, or it is served by transit, or there is a variety of land uses within walking distance.
Closeness to water: and sewer systems: Each project must be on a site served by existing publicly-owned water and wastewater infrastructure or must be within a legally adopted, publicly-owned planned water and wastewater service area and provide new water and wastewater infrastructure for the development.
Reduced size of project: The maximum size of any one project will be 320 acres. A number of the pilot projects were considerably larger than that. “We had one pilot project that was 12,800 acres; it was hard to evaluate,” says Mudd. A developer could still submit a project of more than 320 acres — but only in segments.
Density and transit: This prerequisite now requires that projects with significant transit service achieve a density of 12 units/acre and a floor-area ratio (FAR) of .80 only within a specified walking distance of transit. Beyond that distance, the threshold is lower: 7 units/acre and .50 FAR. This helps larger projects in which not all of the development is within an easy walk of transit.
Connectivity: This is calculated by the number of intersections per mile, but the specific requirements have been streamlined and the language has been made more concise. Dover calls the connectivity prerequisite “the most powerful thing” in LEED-ND.

Remaining qualms
Talk with any gathering of new urbanists, and misgivings crop up. Developer Jonathan Rose notes that a new urban infill project he built in Denver, Highlands’ Garden Village, would not qualify because its commercial area has an FAR of only 0.35 rather than the required 0.50. Rose says the project cannot achieve the higher FAR because it already has fewer commercial parking spaces than are needed by tenants in this location, and a garage or parking deck would be too expensive.
The FAR issue could be a significant problem for some mixed-use projects. Rose suggested that a lower FAR prerequisite would be better, with bonus points for higher density. Others questioned why projects with transit are required to meet a higher density standard, when transit in itself is an environmental virtue.
Developer Bob Chapman of TND Partners says LEED-ND “seems to be encouraging people to split hairs and acquire point totals” — while potentially losing sight of what makes a place satisfying. He resists numerical evaluation systems, saying, “Experience and good judgment should always trump a normative formula.”
“My fear is that we are not market-friendly enough,” says Ted Bardacke of Global Green USA in Santa Monica, California. In trying to avoid certifying bad projects, the system may end up being too strict, and thus not winning enough acceptance, he says.
“I think it’s pretty good,” Mudd nonetheless says of LEED-ND. “I think it will help lead positive changes in the market, and will do so in a way that is realistic.” It represents, she says, “a positive confluence of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building concepts.”
Farr notes that LEED products are on a regular update protocol, and if LEED-ND takes effect this year, it will be scrutinized and modified by 2012, when the first update would be due. “Minor revisions will be worked on by various committees to 2012,” he says.
Almost offhandedly, Farr offers one more reason for adopting the system now rather than postponing it by conducting another public comment period: “People are also tired. We’ve been doing this for more than five years.” Adds Dover: “It’s been a very long process. It seems like every syllable was negotiated.”
The rating system is carefully explained in a 108-page document at cnu.org/node/2838.
CNU will conduct the member ballot online, at cnu.org/leednd. In anticipation of the vote, CNU is encouraging members to check their membership status and make sure they can log into the cnu.org website. When balloting begins, members should log onto the website, where they will gain access to the ballot and be able to vote.
If approved, LEED-ND could be opened to new projects this fall.