Home Sustainable Land Development Today April 2005

Taking the Leed: Developing Green Neighborhoods

Written by Pamela Dyane

Thursday, 31 March 2005

Moving sustainability beyond buildings. Since its inception in 1998, the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™, which was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), has become the national standard for defining and measuring high performance buildings. This rating system’s framework has gained wide acceptance as a way of teaching the best practices in resource-efficient building design, as well as recognizing the builders and owners that implement them. The system’s rigorous criteria are organized into several categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, indoor environmental quality, material and resources, and innovation in design. As a result of the success of the LEED rating systems for buildings, which include LEED for New Construction, LEED for Existing Buildings, and LEED for Commercial Interiors (with others currently under development), discussions and efforts began in 2001 to establish criteria and a similar rating system to better include and recognize design practices in land development Recognizing the Community Need Doug Farr, award-winning Chicago architect, and one of the country’s pioneers in Green Building design, recognized that the incorporation of LEED into the development of neighborhood communities was a natural progression in completing the principles behind the LEED program standards. Farr recognized early in his career that if green buildings were to be completely beneficial to the environment, they must include green development as well. “Why would I withhold these ideas that I embrace for the building,” commented Farr, “from the scale of the neighborhood?” Several years ago, fueled by his desire to see the LEED practice expand to community development, Farr invited his friend and colleague, Shelley Poticha, who was then the Executive Director of the Congress for the New Urbanism, to attend a green building conference in Tuscan, Arizona. “It was there,” says Farr, “that we recognized the power that the LEED movement possessed in developing Smart Growth neighborhoods.” Poticha and Farr returned from the conference anxious to consult with Kaid Benfield of the Natural Resources Defense Council about applying the LEED protocol to land planning projects. The three colleagues hosted a small conference at the Congress of the New Urbanism along with USGBC. They used the event to collaborate and strategize how to incorporate the neighborhood development into the LEED framework. This successful effort resulted in the three-way partnership with USGBC, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). They have joined together to develop a national standard for neighborhood development that integrates the principles of green building and smart growth. The goal of this initiative is to engage stakeholders across the nation in establishing consensus-based standards for accessing the impacts of development projects utilizing the LEED rating system. Initially referred to as LEED-Communities, Farr was responsible for pushing to change the name to LEEDNeighborhood Development (LEED-ND). “I really fought for that name Neighborhood Development,” says Farr, “because it really emphasizes the new urbanist philosophy that the neighborhood unit is essentially neighborhood planning.” Creating the Core Principles of LEED-ND Supported by the USGBC staff, a core committee has been appointed by the three partner organizations. This committee is responsible for developing the proposed LEED-ND rating system. In December 2004, the LEED-ND Core Committee of 15 members met for a two-day retreat at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin. The committee was dispersed into two subcommittees in an effort to ascertain and concentrate on the prerequisites and credit specific to that particular area of focus. As a result, they agreed to organize the potential LEED-ND credits and prerequisites into four categories: 1) Natural systems larger than the neighborhood; 2) Natural systems within the neighborhood; 3) Human systems larger than the neighborhood; 4) Human systems within the neighborhood. These categories are illustrated in the matrix and diagrams, along with representative examples of potential credits or prerequisites in each category. The examples here are not inclusive or definitive - they are only to illustrate each category. It is important to note that while the Core Committee has found this chart a helpful tool for organizing its work at this stage of the process, these categories will not necessarily replace the category division of existing LEED products (e.g., Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, etc.). LEED-ND will emphasize smart growth aspects of development while maintaining the most important green building practices. In considering criteria, the project’s sponsors will be guided by the Charter for the New Urbanism and the Smart Growth Network’s Ten Principles of smart growth: 1) Mix land uses; 2) Take advantage of compact building design; 3) Create housing opportunities and choices for a range of household types, family sizes, and incomes; 4) Create walkable neighborhoods; 5) Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place; 6) Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, historic buildings, and critical environmental areas; 7) Reinvest in and strengthen existing communities and achieve more balanced regional development; 8) Provide a variety of transportation choices; 9) Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effective; 10) Encourage citizen and stakeholder participation in development decisions. Among these issues, other principles will be addressed such as density, proximity to transit, mixed use, mixed housing type, and pedestrian-and bicycle-friendly design. Once finalized and established, the LEED-ND rating system would provide an essential objective foundation on which to certify developments as smart growth. In practice, LEED-ND would create a distinctive label, as well as a set of guidelines for decision-making, that would serve as a concrete incentive for better location, design, and construction of neighborhoods and buildings. Furthermore, the LEED-ND rating system is that it can be readily folded into USGBC’s well-established and successful efforts to implement and market LEED. Just as the existing LEED Rating System has a proven track record of encouraging builders to utilize green building practices, such as water efficiency and increased energy, the LEED-ND approach can have similar positive effects on development trends which can revitalize existing urban areas, decrease land consumption, decrease vehicle miles traveled, improve air quality, decrease polluted stormwater runoff, and build communities where people of a variety of income levels can coexist. Implementing the Rating System The LEED-ND Core Committee is continuing their work and hopes to produce a draft for the LEED-ND Corresponding Committee to review by early summer 2005. As required for every LEED product, USGBC establishes a larger “corresponding committee” so that a wider group of experts and interested parties can be kept informed of progress on the new rating system and provide feedback. By means of e-mail and listservs, members of the corresponding committee will receive minutes of the core committee meetings, be notified of important events relating to LEED-ND, and be given the first opportunity to comment on technical items and draft versions of the rating system. The LEED-ND Corresponding Committee is open to USGBC members and non-members alike, but there are different ways to join: • USGBC members should go to www.usgbc.org and subscribe to the LEED-ND committee listserv through the individual site user account section of the website. • If you are not a USGBC member, send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it stating that you’d like to join the LEEDND Corresponding Committee. After soliciting feedback from the Corresponding Committee, the Core Committee will process the feedback and revise the draft into a pilot phase rating system for LEED-ND. The pilot phase will test the draft rating system using actual projects at various stages of planning and construction. An official call for pilot projects will be made to the LEED-ND Corresponding Committee, and the projects will be selected to reflect a diversity of types. The pilot phase will last approximately a year, after which further revisions will be made to the rating system, incorporating lessons learned during the pilot phase. There will then be two public comment periods to solicit further feedback before the final approval and balloting processes take place. SLDT