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Trades Training
USGBC
Excerpted from LEED 2009 for Neighborhood Development
SLL Credit 5: Housing and jobs proximity
Intent
To encourage balanced communities with a diversity of uses and employment opportunities.
Requirements
OPTION 1. Project with affordable residential component (3 points)
Include a residential component equaling at least 30% of the project’s total building square footage (exclusive of parking structures), and locate and/or design the project such that the geographic center (or boundary if the project exceeds 500 acres) is within 1/2-mile walk distance of existing full-time-equivalent jobs whose number is equal to or greater than the number of dwelling units in the project; and satisfy the requirements necessary to earn at least one point under NPD Credit 4, Mixed-Income Diverse Communities, Option 2, Affordable Housing.
OR
Option 2. Project With residential component (2 points)
Include a residential component equaling at least 30% of the project’s total building square footage (exclusive of parking structures), and locate and/or design the project such that the geographic center (or boundary if the project exceeds 500 acres) is within 1/2-mile walk distance of existing full-time-equivalent jobs whose number is equal to or greater than the number of dwelling units in the project.
OR
Option 3. Infill project with nonresidential component (1 point)
Include a nonresidential component equaling at least 30% of the project’s total building square footage (exclusive of parking structures), and locate on an infill site whose geographic center (or boundary if the project exceeds 500 acres) is within 1/2-mile walk distance of an existing rail transit, ferry, or tram stop and within 1/2-mile walk distance of existing dwelling units whose number is equal to or greater than 50% of the number of new full-time-equivalent jobs created as part of the project.
Potential Technologies & Strategies
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4 Comments
Existing jobs within the project area? (Option 1)
For Option 1: Project with Affordable Residential Component, can jobs created within the project area be considered, or can we count only jobs within the 1/2-mile radius but outside the project area?
Here's the context: a project has a residential component equal to 56% of the total building square footage. But the 44% non-residential component includes 3 commercial towers, a shopping center, hotel, and university. In all, 11,000 new jobs will be existing once the project is completed. There are 2,836 dwelling units.
Do these 11,000 jobs count towards credit compliance, or does the project team have to go ahead and count all the pre-existing jobs within 1/2 mile of the geographic center, outside the boundary? I'm trying to avoid the humongous effort of listing all these jobs if the credit can be achieved with the new 11,000 jobs!
Paola, SLLc5 only allows existing jobs to be counted, and 'existing' is defined as the date of project submission for cert review. Note that you only need to identify 2,836 jobs to achieve the threshold, and sometimes that can be accomplished through a few major employers rather than a full survey of all businesses within the 1/2-mile radius.
Eliot
Hi Eliot,
Say the project is entering Stage 1. So if the project team demonstrates that at least 2,836 of the new jobs to be created within the project will be existing by the time Stage 3 is submitted for certification review, than these new jobs can be counted fulfilling credit requirements. Is my understanding correct?
The difficulty is that the surrounding area has many small, informal commercial establishments, but doesn't have major companies. So the collection of data would be extremely time-consuming and painstaking. And the project itself will provide so many jobs that it would be unfair for the project not to achieve the credit. So if Stage 3 submission date is after at least 2,836 new jobs have been created within the project, then they can be counted, correct?
Thanks,
Alex
Alex, I'm afraid your work-around is not acceptable for a Stage 1 submission where the job number would have to be counted as of the Stage 1 submission date, not a future Stage 3 submission date. This is because the objective of SLLc5 is to encourage project location where favorable circumstances already exist, rather than have the project create those circumstances.
Eliot
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