Existing Roads as Recycled Content

Colin, can you explain a bit more about what the existing "hardscape infrastructure" is?
Eliot

Yes, you're ok counting them per the ND Reference Guide's implementation section: "The overall percentage of recycled infrastructure materials is determined by combining the recycled content of new infrastructure items with in-place reclaimed materials (materials used in infrastructure that exists before the project and will remain in use after the project is completed)."
Eliot

Always a good idea to double-check, especially with ND. The other idea I was going to mention in a unique case like this is the additional possibility of an IDPc1 innovation point for "reuse of a circulation system." You might be able to pitch that as a variant of the GIBc5 Existing Building Reuse credit, if the street rights-of-way haven't yet been dedicated or turned over to the local jurisdiction.

Colin, I should have taken my own advice and double-checked before answering you in a case where the Reference Guide language is ambiguous. After talking with USGBC/GBCI staff, it turns out the operative interpretation is that a previously-constructed street that's left intact can not be counted under GIBc15. It can only be counted if it's demolished and the materials are reused in new infrastructure. Apparently the ambiguity has already been noticed because it's been clarified in LEED v4, and I apologize for misleading you. I should also clarify that my IDPc1 idea was strictly brainstorming and not meant to imply acceptability at GBCI. That said, if inherited streets haven't been dedicated to the local government yet, their reuse for a new project strikes me as a legitimate corollary to GIBc5, but that's just my opinion.
Eliot

This all doesn't make much sense. When you demolish and then re-use material on site outside the manufacturing cycle, it is 'Material re-use' as per all notions and concepts so far encountered in any USGBC literature and rating systems. So sidewalks that are demolished and then re-used into the construction of the infrastructure should be entitled to GBIc5 and not GBIc15. I am working on a project with exactly the same situation as Colin's where existing sidewalks will be preserved. I think that the project is entitled for GBIc15 as per the reference guide's explicit text mentioned above by Eliot: "The overall percentage of recycled infrastructure materials is determined by combining the recycled content of new infrastructure items with in-place reclaimed materials (materials used in infrastructure that exists before the project and will remain in use after the project is completed). Eliot, you don't need to apologize for misleading Colin or anyone else, it is the USGBC who needs to apologize. And I don't think that the intent of GIBc15 was ambiguous and just got clarified, I think the USGBC simply changed their mind.

Nader, thanks for your follow-up comment. I can vouch that USGBC didn't change their mind, they confirmed an interpretation that's consistent with other LEED material reuse credits. What I initially overlooked in the Ref Guide quotation is the word "materials" as the subject rather than "infrastructure," and the necessity to demolish infrastructure in order to reclaim its materials. Regarding the re-use of intact sidewalks, if they have already been dedicated as part of the public right-of-way, then they belong to the local government and must be treated as existing public features, and not something that is "re-usable" by a developer. However, if they haven't been dedicated and a developer voluntarily elects to keep them, that might be a viable IDPc1 candidate using a GIBc5 rationale for infrastructure reuse.
Eliot

Thanks for the reply Eliot. I am still not entirely resolved about one point: the wording of the reference guide 'in-place' strongly suggests that such material needs not any demolishing or alterations for it to be counted.
Thanks again and we will probably take a shot at GIBc5 and IDPc1.