LEED-ND may launch pilot this fall

Organizers of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) program hope to start the initiative by operating a small-scale test of it this fall. For about two years, the Congress for the New Urbanism has been collaborating with the US Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council on a system that would certify developments that meet environmental and urbanistic goals. Jennifer Henry, project manager for LEED-ND at the Council, said in February that a pilot program “will likely start this fall and run for nine months to a year.” “The pilot program will test the pilot draft of the LEED-ND rating system with a number of real projects, to determine if the system is practical to use and effective,” Henry said. After seeing how the initial run goes, the group will make whatever refinements seem necessary, she said, and then will “launch the official version of LEED-ND.” She noted that the committee designing LEED-ND “has not yet determined how many projects will be included or what qualifications they will have to satisfy.” Projects that score well on the pilot program’s criteria will receive “pilot certification designation,” Henry said. The participating projects will remain “in pilot” until they either receive full certification or abandon their efforts to win certification. When the full-scale program gets under way, developers presumably will want to receive some form of LEED-ND designation — such as “pre-certification” — fairly early in their government approval process or before they have lined up all their financing. It’s believed that LEED-ND designation would help them move forward in the entitlement stage, help them get funding, and even help attract occupants. Pre-certification might be “a letter saying we’ve looked at the plan and documentation and found that if it’s built to plan, it would be a candidate for LEED-ND certification and would be certifiable,” Henry explained. She noted that “sometimes things change in the entitlement stage, so [the developer] would have to get the plan certified after entitlement.” After the project has been built, documentation would probably have to be submitted. At that point, a plaque might be presented, which could be displayed publicly to identify the project as environmentally and urbanistically responsible.