Hi all,
I would like to ask about the Heat island reduction credit. We are planning to certify a building which does not comply to heat island reduction credit as its boundary includes a huge area of pavement, however, in 5 to 6 years the client intends to construct some more buildings within the boundary of the current building in question and the roofs of the planned buildings will have compliant SRI. How can we comply with this credit? Should we prepare a narrative about future adjacent buildings or we need to proceed without considering future development. It is worthwhile to mention that this is basically a campus project, however, we are pursuing Heat Island reduction credit individually for all the buildings.
Thanks in advance!
Kath Williams
LEED Fellow 2011, PrincipalKath Williams + Associates
140 thumbs up
June 5, 2020 - 3:02 pm
On one campus project, we were denied the heat island credit because of the huge parking lot. Our narrative explained that the parking lot was a future building site. Response was that "parking lots into building sites" is the usual campus pattern but a new building may not actually happen due to funding, etc. We were advised by other project teams to bring the LEED project boundary close into the building and not include the parking lot. Not sure that is an ethical approach if you are building the parking lot with the current registered building.
Hashir Usman
June 8, 2020 - 7:37 am
Hi Kath Williams,
Your response is really insightful. You're also right about the ethical approach to consider boundary of the building, however, if the pavements and parking lot are being designed considering the future development as well then I believe it is ethical to restrict the boundary of the building since the essence of this credit is to reduce environmental impacts in the form of heat island reduction and if the design is prepared and funding is approved for the future buildings then I hope GBCI will consider it. It's a tricky situation but looking at the essence of this credit, it might be possible to achieve compliance.
Thanks again for your kind response!
Eric Anderson
26 thumbs up
June 8, 2020 - 11:04 am
Based upon the information provided, I agree with Kath. There are a couple factors/situations that might influence that opinion though. If the parking lot mostly supports one or more buildings OTHER THAN the certifying one (e.g., it is shared campus infrastructure rather than specifically supporting the certifying building), &/or the future building/s intended to replace the parking lot was/were imminent (e.g., design complete and construction due within the 2 yr deadline to submit after this project's completion), it might be acceptable to exclude the parking lot from this building project's LPB. If either of those situations applied, you could submit more detailed information to USGBC/GBCI to confirm whether excluding such an area was acceptable. It would be most prudent to do so prior to submitting (or even documenting) the project in LEED Online.
Susan Di Giulio
Senior Project ManagerZinner Consultants
152 thumbs up
June 8, 2020 - 1:18 pm
A few thoughts on strategy:
Consider deferring this credit to the construction submittal, by which time the adjacent projects might be further along in terms of design and funding. Also, by that time it might be possible to get the campus design approved and access it as a campus credit. And by all means, tighten up your LPB to the limit of work for this project alone. That isn't wrong.
Claudia Sturcz
Kádár Consulting Kft.1 thumbs up
July 15, 2020 - 5:14 am
Hi All,
our project will have a green facade wall. If I am right is considered to be a non-roof measure but I don't know how to calculate with it. Full surface area of the facade? Or does it depend on the density of the plants?