Next big thing: green neighborhoods
By Steve Law, Sustainable Life
March 11, 2010
LEED program expands from single buildings to big developments
Green buildings are so 2000s.
The next big thing for the 2010s? Green neighborhoods.
After five years in the hopper, the group that ushered in popular “LEED” standards to certify and foster environmentally friendly buildings is expanding, along with two partner organizations, to promote green subdivisions and mixed-use projects.
They call it LEED-ND, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development.
“The environmental gains are much larger when you capture them at a point when a neighborhood is planned and designed,” says Portland planner Eliot Allen, a principal at Criterion Planners who was instrumental in crafting the new rating system. “Instead of a single building at a time, you’re capturing hundreds of buildings at once.”
“I think it’s certainly going to help make greener developments,” says Eric Ridenour, an architect and urban designer with SERA Architects in Portland.
Buildings are one of the single-largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. LEED design standards can dramatically improve energy efficiency and other building performance measures, cutting carbon emissions that cause global warming.
Created by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED provides a voluntary system that encourages developers to shoot for higher standards. Developers who put more features into a building can gain a standard, silver, gold or platinum rating. Providing an independent certification of a building’s green features means tenants, lenders and others don’t have to rely on the claims of a developer.
The system has been so successful that the city of Portland and other jurisdictions now require LEED standards for new public buildings. Private developers seek out LEED certification because it lends a cachet to their project, helping them fill their buildings faster and charge higher rents.
From buildings to neighborhoods
After seeing the success of LEED for single buildings, the U.S. Green Building Council set out in 2004 to expand the concept to whole neighborhoods, working with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Congress for New Urbanism. Their goal is to foster neighborhoods that have a gentler impact on the environment, that reduce carbon emissions and that meet broader social and quality-of-life goals, such as housing affordability and locating jobs near homes.
“The best ideas from across the country have been distilled into a single system,” Allen says.
Instead of just a geeky review of a building, he says, LEED-ND addresses families and their back yards. Developers can score higher in the new ratings system by preserving wetlands, enabling community gardens and farmers markets, and meeting other goals.
The three organizations, along with consultants like Allen, have been fine-tuning the new rating system, and are field-testing it by evaluating several dozen pilot projects using the new certification standards.
Portland role
Portland, a national leader in the move to green buildings, also is making outsized contributions to LEED-ND.
Portland’s vibrant walkable neighborhoods were a role model for some of the precepts of LEED-ND, says Sophie Lambert, director of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Neighborhood Development program in Washington, D.C.
Eliot Tower, an 18-story condo tower near the downtown Portland cultural district, was the first guinea pig to go through the certification process.
It’s one of five pilot projects in Portland. The others are Ladd Tower, a 23-story apartment building in the cultural district; Helensview, a 4.5-acre subdivision of 40 homes and 12 condos near Northeast Killingsworth Street and 64th Avenue; Hoyt Yards, a 34-acre complex in the Pearl District; and the Central District in South Waterfront, a 35-acre site.
Only Washington, D.C., with 10 pilot projects, has more than Portland. There’s also five pilot projects in Los Angeles.
Different from eco districts
The budding LEED-ND system was one of the inspirations for Portland’s pursuit of “eco districts,” says Rob Bennett, director of the Portland + Oregon Sustainability Institute. Eco districts, also in their infancy, are modeled after pioneering efforts in
Sweden, Vancouver, B.C., and elsewhere to redevelop worn-down sections of town with environmentally friendly transportation, energy, sewage and other features.
LEED-ND standards are more of a “how-to” set of guidelines. They could emerge as a way to set standards for an eco district and independently certify a district has met the stiff standards.
Eco districts also are seen as primarily redevelopments, Bennett says, while LEED-ND is best suited to new developments that are framed in master plans.
Allen says the LEED-ND could work in redevelopments as well, such as abandoned industrial “brownfields,” where the cost of cleaning up pollution is a barrier to reuse of the land. Getting a LEED-ND label could enable a brownfield development project to attract more financing, Allen says.
Studies have demonstrated that LEED-certified buildings attract higher rents and fill up faster, Ridenour says. Some even reduce employee absentee rates, by providing more passive sunlight that makes the buildings a more pleasant place to work.
LEED-ND organizers recently launched training sessions so a developer, architect or other professional can obtain credentials as a LEED-ND specialist. Some 400 people applied within the first couple days, Allen says.
Source: http://www.usgbc.org/News/USGBCInTheNewsDetails.aspx?ID=4336
