We have a project on an existing campus which requires that two large cranes sit next to the project on an adjacent turf area. We do not plan to do any improvements on this turf area and plan to restore it to its "before crane" state as it is not technically part of the project. BUT because of Min. Project Requirement #3 regarding the LEED Project Boundary and the statement that any land disturbed in anyway for the construction of the project MUST be inside the LEED boundary, we now have to include this turf area under the cranes as part of our LEED boundary and include it in the WE Credit 1 calcs. This is too bad b/c we are not irrigating any of the plantings in our actual project.
Because this is worth 4 points to us, I just have to ask the experts--is our thinking correct? The USGBC would like us to include the turf area under the cranes? Thank you!
Susann Geithner
PrincipalEmerald Built Environments
1297 thumbs up
August 11, 2011 - 1:14 pm
This comes down to do you own this land also? According to the supplementary guidelines for the MPRs you can excluded a supporting area, if you don't own that land. Otherwise it's considered gerrymandering. But even if you exclude it from the LEED project boundary you probably still have to follow the requirements of SS P1.
http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6473 page 22 and following