My project consists of some landscaping at grade (2%) and the majority of landscaping on the podium level (18%) for a combined landscaped area that is about 20% of the site.
The exert below describes a case for counting courtyard garden space, in the event that there is no vegetation on the ground. In my case, there is some vegetation on the ground, but I need to count both areas to achieve this credit. Could I assume that I can combine these two areas in order to achieve this credit?
'For buildings without vegetation on the grounds, teams can earn points by reducing the use of potable water for watering any roof and courtyard garden space or outdoor planters, provided the planters and garden space cover at least 5% of the building site area (including building footprint, hardscape area, parking footprint, etc.)'
Jens Apel
134 thumbs up
May 2, 2018 - 2:21 am
I would see the landscape on podium level as one or several large planters, so the 5% should be more than met.
In any way to my experience you wouldn't even need the podium landscape. If you take the wording in the excerpt you copied word-for-word you need to meet 5% only if there is no vegetation on the ground. In theory a 1m² vegetation would be sufficient on a 100.000m² site, if the vegetation is not above building / basement (and thus on the ground). I actually submitted a CIR on this to make dead sure and have 2 succesful design reviews where the 5% threshold was not met, but we had vegetation on the grounds. In both cases all vegetation was used in the water consumption calculation, regardless of on the ground or not.
Not sure if this is intentional but it seems like a gap in the requirements, allowing you to earn full points with close to no vegetation.