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Reduce the impact of automobile use
This relatively straightforward credit is meant to reduce the number of cars on the road and limit the sprawl of parking facilities. It also helps encourage carpooling and reduce transportation-related environmental impacts like emissions, stormwater runoff, and the urban heat islandA densely populated area in which pavement and buildings absorb, store, and release solar energy, making the vicinity warmer than it would be if the pavement and buildings were not present. effect.
If you build it, they might come
Before choosing to limit the availability of onsite parking, it’s wise to consider just how likely your building occupants are to take...
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11 Comments
Interior renovation within a single tenant building
Radiology suite within and existing urban hospital seeking a LEED CI certification.
Unlike a tenant lease, this suite is part of the hospital and shares the facility's parking. This suite will not add to the overall population and no new parking spaces will be built. How do we show compliance with this LEED credit given the mentioned scenario?
Tristan Roberts replied Editor – LEEDuser, BuildingGreen, LLC Nov 20 2009
If there is no parking designated for the radiology suite, it seems like the conservative approach here (and LEED usually smiles on conservative approaches) would be to follow Case 2 and approach this credit as if you were the whole hospital. But if that approach seems problematic to you, I would check with GBCI. If you do that, please report back what you learn.
Steve Loppnow replied Research Consultant, YRG sustainability Dec 07 2009
It seems that the appropriate approach to the credit would be to follow Case 1, Option 1. Although the parking area is shared, the project team should still be able to quantify the number of tenant occupants, then designate the appropriate number of preferred parkingPreferred parking, available to particular users, includes designated spaces close to the building (aside from designated handicapped spots), designated covered spaces, discounted parking passes, and guaranteed passes in a lottery system. spaces in the parking area based on that number. While this may be difficult because there are no spaces designated to individual programming spaces in the hospital, consider working with the building management to designate the appropriate number of spaces for your project. At some level the parking is designed to meet the needs of the hospital's occupants, so the team should be able to drill this down and determine a number of spaces for the clinic. If this isn't feasible and there is no way to designate spaces for the clinic, this credit may not apply to your project. However, as the previous comment suggests, follow-up with the GBCI to confirm your approach.
Mara Baum replied Sustainability Coordinator, Anshen + Allen Architects Dec 08 2009
This credit is quite a challenge for hospitals in general, because there are often requirements or recommendations unrelated to local codes which cause a hospital to install more parking than they might if they took the code literally. Regardless of the option selected, if your sense is that a significant amount of the campus population uses transit, then you should follow through with this credit; otherwise it's less likely that the hospital will have a parking capacity at or below code minimum.
You may want to ask your client if they have done a formal parking study in recent years unrelated to your project -- this will tell you the source and justification of parking numbers. In my region, one common practice is to use local code to determine parking requirements for MOBs, but ITE values for inpatient square footage.
Steve Loppnow replied Research Consultant, YRG sustainability Dec 08 2009
To follow-up, It may also be possible for the radiology suite project to use an FTEFull-time equivalent (FTE) represents a regular building occupant who spends 8 hours a day (40 hours a week) in the project building. Part-time or overtime occupants have FTE values based on their hours per day divided by 8 (or hours per week divided by 40). Transient Occupants can be reported as either daily totals or as part of the FTE. Residential occupancy should be estimated based on the number and size of units. Core and Shell projects should refer to the default occupancy table in the Reference Guide appendix. All occupant assumptions must be consistent across all credits in all categories. approach to determine the number of preferred parkingPreferred parking, available to particular users, includes designated spaces close to the building (aside from designated handicapped spots), designated covered spaces, discounted parking passes, and guaranteed passes in a lottery system. spaces. As noted in the CIRCredit Interpretation Ruling. Used by design team members experiencing difficulties in the application of a LEED prerequisite or credit to a project. Typically, difficulties arise when specific issues are not directly addressed by LEED information/guide below, the USGBC has recommended this approach for past campus projects with shared parking facilities. Although old CIRs cannot be referenced for v2009 compliance, they are good to look to for general guidance. It may be worth contacting your project’s Certification Body (CB) to ensure this approach meets the requirements.
5/25/2008 - Ruling
The project is seeking clarification on how to determine the number of parking spaces allocated as preferred parking for low-emitting and fuel-efficient vehiclesFuel-efficient vehicles have achieved a minimum green score of 40 according to the annual vehicle-rating guide of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy., for a building with shared parking on a multi-building campus. The proposed calculation methodology of using Full Time Equivalent (FTE) numbers and providing 5% of the FTE number with preferred parking is acceptable for this credit. As this is a campus project, preferred parking can be provided in the existing multi-level parking structure, even though it is not a part of the LEED Project Boundary. The skywalk and pavilion, which are additions to an existing building, can also be excluded from the LEED Project Boundary.
Retail space parking
This retail space is aprox 2000ft2 and has more spaces (6) allocated to it than code requires.
How does LEED separate the discouragement of single use vehicles for full-time employees and the need for providing convenient parking for customers?
Is it as simple as signage showing customer and employee parking?
Tristan Roberts replied Editor – LEEDuser, BuildingGreen, LLC Dec 02 2009
Alex, LEED-CI SSc3.3 does not look at who is using the parking — it only looks at how much parking the project has, relative to the minimum required by zoning.
In other words, it doesn't give you an "out" if you want to focus on limiting parking for staff while providing lots of parking for customers.
Does that answer your question? Are you seeing something about signage somewhere?
Devon Bertram replied Consultant, YRG sustainability Dec 07 2009
The retail rating system requirements for SSc3D only focuses on having 5% of employee parking designated as preferred carpool parking (as it may not be likely / make sense to have customers carpool). As for appropriate signage to help communicate meeting these requirements, the project can designate an area specifically for employee parking, and within this area have the preferred carpool signage for 5% of these spaces. All other parking can include signage designated for customers only.
Alex Warburton replied Dec 09 2009
thanks Tristan - i think that answers it. I didn't see anything about signage, no...i think i may have been just projecting hope
Devon - i'm a bit confused by the wording you used "The retail rating system requirements" . I don't see anything in CI that singles retail out as anything different.
The way i read it, we need to have both limited overall parking (no more than code) as well as the carpool priority. Our space is less that 75%, BTW.
I'd prefer to be wrong...?
Devon Bertram replied Consultant, YRG sustainability Dec 10 2009
Alex, I didn't mean to confuse things - there is a LEED rating system particular to retail that is currently in the balloting phase (LEED for Retail-NC and LEED for Retail-CI). If your project is registered under LEED CI then you would need to comply with the CI requirements.
Does that clarify things?
Alex Warburton replied Dec 10 2009
thanks Devon - all clear now.
cheers
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