Need some fellow LEED Users to weigh in on a special circumstance:
We are working on a project for a law-enforcement agency on a central city site. There is no minimum parking requirement in our local zoning. The scope includes covered, structured parking for aproximately 50 fleet vehicles. The provided parking stalls will not be available to any vehicles other than the law enforcement fleet vehicles. These fleet vehicles are not used for personal transportation.
We are not providing any new parking for commuter vehicles. Workers and visitors will utilize public transportation, bicycle, walking or public parking options for reaching the site.
Since we are not providing parking for commuter transportation, and the stalls we are providing are for public-safety vehicles in covered, structured parking, would we be justified in claiming that we meet the credit intent of option 3, provide no new parking?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11475 thumbs up
January 9, 2011 - 11:22 pm
I could see a valid argument here that the fleet vehicles are more like a "process" load and don't constitute actual parking capacity in the sense that is covered by the credit. On the other hand, looked at objectively one could say that of course parking is being added. I will ask around for other opinions, but I would suggest submitting it and seeing it if flies. Let us know how it goes.
April Ambrose
Business Development ManagerEntegrity
230 thumbs up
May 12, 2011 - 6:35 pm
We have a similar situation where we're not sure if the fleet parking needs to be included in this credit. This project is a local electrical utility and the vehicles are utility trucks. Our local zoning does not take the fleet into account, but we are 'adding' covered parking for it as part of our project scope. I'd love to hear how others have treated this.
SERA Architects
SERA Architects54 thumbs up
May 13, 2011 - 11:19 am
We have had a similar case and were told that for a situation as described above, this would be considered as new parking considering that the project is new construction and not a renovation where existing parking is being reused. We had a similar project where we were able to achieve this credit for provided parking for the police fleet.However, since the project was relocation to a new site so that the dept. could be closer to other county depts and court, we were able to achieve this credit by showing that it was a just a relocation of function (i.e. parking for police fleet) and no additional new parking was being added. Otherwise, I believe it would be considered as new parking and therefore will be required to show reduce parking compared to zoning or other parking standards. Hope this helps.
Nadia Ayala
Architect / LEED AP BD+CKILTIK Consultoría
52 thumbs up
January 5, 2012 - 2:22 pm
Hello, I have a similar situation. My project is an industrial plant in Mexico. We have an area dedicated for trailer trucks loading/unloading only, and since vehicles won't stay there for a long time, I'm not sure if we should consider it as parking spaces or parking area. Any thoughts on this matter?
John Ida
PresidentUrban Works, Inc.
82 thumbs up
January 11, 2012 - 10:12 pm
We are wondering the same thing for our project - We have bus loading and truck loading areas that will be marked NO PARKING - however we are unsure if the loading areas should be considered in the count.