I seem to remember a requirement somewhere for the Car Share option that for a campus setting, the vehicles must somehow be reserved for use by the LEED building occupants only. Now I cannot find that requirement anywhere....
Did it ever exist? Did it go away? Thanks.
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Erica Downs
LEED ConsultantThe Green Engineer
254 thumbs up
January 18, 2013 - 4:20 pm
Alternatively, maybe someone can help me with this car share question, which is why I'm asking:
The client is a large university with an urban campus, with buildings all over the city. They are looking to use their existing zipcar program to achieve SSc4.3, Option 4. There is no parking at the building, so the zipcars are located in a central lot, and are available to the entire campus (staff, faculty, students).
My guess is they would have to either
a) have additional qualifying zipcars somehow dedicated soley to this building's occupants, OR
b) treat this as a campus credit, which would entail vastly increasing the quantity of zipcars in order to meet the 1 car / 267 FTE requirement.
In other words, they must use the entire campus FTE (i.e., all potential users) when calculating the cars required, or dedicate use to the building.
Am I correct? Thanks!
Ellen Mitchell
331 thumbs up
January 21, 2013 - 10:01 am
Hi Erica,
I am not sure if this was based on an interpretation or if it is one of those "phantom" requirements, but I have had pretty consistent review comments stating that the car share cars (or reserved spaces for that matter) must either be reserved for the specific LEED project or there must be enough cars to supply the whole campus. I'm guessing that this is an effort to eliminate the potential for double dipping with future LEED projects on campus.
For your specific project, I think that either one of your A or B options would work. Also keep in mind that if there is no parking as part of your project scope, the reviewers are going to want to see your zipcars parked in the closest available lot to your site.
Erica Downs
LEED ConsultantThe Green Engineer
254 thumbs up
January 21, 2013 - 3:29 pm
Thank you Ellen -
I honestly don't remember where I think I previously saw that requirement... and I haven't been able to find it again.
Thanks for the feedback -- that pretty much confirms my expectations, written requirement or not.
Erica Downs
LEED ConsultantThe Green Engineer
254 thumbs up
January 7, 2014 - 1:57 pm
Revisiting this Car Share issue, as it has not gone away for my project....
What have other projects done for an urban setting, where the shared vehicle is parked in a semi-public lot?
The client's issues are two-fold:
1) The project building is small enough that only one shared car would be required, and it really does NOT make sense to limit use of this car to people in the building (it will be WAY under-utilized).
2) The University is large enough that contracting with a car-share program on a campus-wide basis is a huge undertaking, and also would not make sense. It seems the use-restriction would still need to be in effect -- there would literally be dozens of zipcars dedicated only to the university and likely underused.
I have spoken with Zipcar and another car share rep, and they say they have never had to deal with a use-restriction issue before, unless the vehicle is parked in a private garage. So obviously not all universities are restricting usage.
Also, what about commercial buildings in urban settings? Seems those cars would likely be available to the public as well -- how do you get around this? Or do the LEED Reviewers simply not ask for the info??
Any insights, advice, or experience to relate would be appreciated!
Michelle Bombeck
Associate PrincipalO'Brien360
35 thumbs up
October 16, 2014 - 1:36 pm
Erica - Have you come to a decision on how to pursue the car share option of this credit in you campus situation? Or, even better, have you submitted and gotten approval or comments back on your strategy? I'm encountering this same situation and would love any input you have.
I received a comment on another college campus project regarding bike racks. It was essentially the same issue as with the car sharing and the reviewer indicated that we either needed to reserve the racks for our project building users or provide enough racks to meet the credit requirements for the entire campus.
Any ideas or experience you have would be appreciated!
Erica Downs
LEED ConsultantThe Green Engineer
254 thumbs up
July 11, 2017 - 2:45 pm
Update... we did eventually earn this credit. We submitted with the contract for one car, and the preferred parking, and were asked no questions by the review team.