Best Practices

Building staff must administer the parking plan: preferred or discounted parking, or vehicle sharing. Procedures and policies must be developed. Consider implementing enforcement mechanisms as well. 

Building personnel are responsible for establishing procedures relating to carpooling or vanpooling and for administering any programs, as applicable. 

Using clear signage to designate areas for carpooling and sharing information about rides is a first step in facilitating communication about such programs. These areas should be easily accessible to all building occupants. 

If more than 10% of the total project area is non-residential space, you will need to follow two paths for the different portions (residential vs. non-residential) of the project. This may seem complicated but is really quite simple. Typically mixed-use buildings have separate parking for the commercial and residential portions of the building. In this case you would designate 5% of the commercial parking spaces as preferred parking.

When choosing among options to reduce single-occupancy vehicles, consider the time that will be spent by building personnel in administering a car-sharing plan, keeping a ride-board updated, or organizing shuttle services. Also consider the type of infrastructure that may be needed for specific programs, like a carpool drop-off area with signage, or preferred parking spaces for carpools, car-share preferred parking space, website for ride-board, etc. Procedures and policies may need to be developed and maintained over time. 

Consider whether there are existing vehicle-share programs in the area that you can utilize. If not, research vendors that can help develop a program.

Residential projects can include preferred parking spaces for carpools as part of their program to reduce single-occupancy vehicles. “Preferred parking” refers to designated spaces located nearest the building entrance, covered, or at a discount price, but not providing preference over disabled parking. 

You may want to assess the likelihood that building occupants will carpool to work and use the reserved carpooling parking spaces; you may find that it is best to provide carpooling incentives to motivate people to minimize single-occupancy vehicles. 

In the event that occupancy numbers are not known, the LEED Reference Guide includes default

There are no “LEED Police.” Use of preferred parking spaces required for non-residential buildings are largely based on the honor system and the integrity of building management and occupants. Consider incorporating an enforcement mechanism that will ensure carpool parking spaces are not abused. To ensure that preferred parking polices are respected, consider the following strategies: