How does one define under which rating system the master site should be registered?
We have a 220.000 m2 built area Master Site. At this moment, two office buildings in the site will be LEED-CS certified. Total built area of the office buildings is 30.000 m2. Rest of the Master Site consists of residential space. We have defined the Master Site to be a CS registration as well because we want to do the precertification application for the Master Site as well.
Or is there some other rule to follow?
Elizabeth Thompson
Green Building SpecialistUSGBC/ GBCI
78 thumbs up
February 1, 2012 - 1:09 pm
Thanks for posting this question about how to decide which rating system to select when registering a Master Site project. The general principal is to register the project with the rating system that will provide the broadest use of the Master Site’s Campus Credits. On page 9 of the 2010 AGMBC Guidance, Version 1 (https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=7987), at the top of the page, there is guidance for “Applying similar credits across rating systems” that says:
“The project team may apply credits and prerequisites earned in the Master Site review to individual projects registered under different rating systems within the same Block, if the credit is earned by applying the requirements of the most stringent rating system.”
However, for multiple building projects that include individual buildings using LEED-CS that wish to utilize Campus Credits from the Master Site project for Precertification purposes, the team should register the Master Site project under LEED-CS, because that is the only rating system eligible for the Precertification phase review process.
You said that the projects’ total built area will be 220,000 square meters. I’m not sure which rating system you would be using for the residential space (190,000 square meters), but if you are still within the BD+C suite of rating systems (using LEED-CS or LEED-NC), then the Campus Credits that you establish with the Master Site will apply fairly well to the residential space. Alternatively, it may be practical to divide the site into two Master Sites, one for the LEED-CS projects, and another for the LEED-NC projects, should some of the buildings be using LEED-NC. If, for some reason, prior to submitting for certification review, a project needs to switch the rating system that a particular Master Site is registered under, please use the Contact Us form (http://www.gbci.org/contactus) at GBCI’s website.