What's Happening from Environmental Building News
June 1, 2007
Neighborhood Developments Line Up for LEED-ND Pilot
As it prepares to announce the participants in the pilot program of the LEED for Neighborhood Developments (LEED-ND) rating system, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is working to turn away a slew of candidates. After hearing from 370 applicants, USGBC hopes to narrow the field to the 120 participants it originally called for.
According to Jennifer Henry, program manager for LEED-ND, “There’s a selection process in place, but it’s taking longer than we thought.” The overwhelming response to the call for pilot projects suggests that the new rating system, which focuses on smart growth and new urban concepts as well as on green building, fills a need in the market and will prove popular when released in its final form.
LEED-ND was created through collaboration between USGBC, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and is divided into three parts that reflect the three organizations’ strengths. The first part, “smart location and linkage,” was influenced by NRDC and incorporates smart growth concepts such as brownfield redevelopment, agricultural land and wetland preservation, and the limitation of construction impacts through density. New urbanist principles from CNU inform the second part of the rating system, “neighborhood pattern and design,” which offers credits for mixed-use development, affordable housing, and walkable streets, among other strategies. The third part, “green construction and technology,” draws from other LEED rating systems and focuses on the environmental performance of the buildings and infrastructure.
All parties involved are hopeful that they’ll learn more about community formation from the pilot program. John Norquist, president and CEO of CNU, hopes the pilot will help the creators of the rating system adjust their criteria: “Do our criteria block good things from happening?” he wondered, adding that “if the things that the core committee really cares about don’t perform well in the pilot, then we’ll have to adjust the criteria.” Kaid Benfield, director of the smart growth program at NRDC, agreed, saying that “we have no doubt that we have more to learn about smart growth metrics.”
Developers applying to the pilot program also hope to gauge how the metrics used in the rating system work when applied to real projects. Joe Van Belleghem of Windmill Developments in Victoria, British Columbia, is hoping that his development Dockside Green will be accepted into the pilot and be the first project to achieve LEED-ND Platinum. Van Belleghem, who is also on the USGBC board of directors, has already begun using LEED-ND in planning his development; the rating system has “brought some new issues to us that we weren’t thinking about,” he said, causing the development team to consider salvaging and restoring historic buildings, for example. He hopes that, by participating in the pilot program, he can bring discussion of the triple bottom line to the rating system, emphasizing that socially conscious and environmental actions boost profitability. “It’s not strictly about how you deal with urban ecology issues,” he said. “It’s also about how you build better communities.”
Henry also expects LEED-ND to influence other LEED rating systems: “The hope is that the new urbanist and smart growth parts of the system will filter up and bring more nuance to those issues in other rating systems.” The pilot program is expected to conclude in 2008, with a final rating system available for member ballot by 2009.
– Allyson Wendt
For more information:
U.S. Green Building Council
Washington, D.C.
202-828-7422
www.usgbc.org/leed/nd/
Natural Resources Defense Council
New York, New York
212-727-2700
www.nrdc.org/smartgrowth/
Congress for the New Urbanism
Chicago, Illinois
312-551-7300
www.cnu.org/initiatives/
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