Tristan,
As you can see from the two longer threads here, several of us are struggling with the issue of dedicated recycling areas inside the building vs. collection areas outside the building for Core & Shell projects with no tenants identified and no common area spaces. There is no indication of this distinction in your Birds Eye guidance above. Yet the CIR you reference clearly refers to "space being provided in the building".
NC/CS systems of the past have only been interested in the exterior enclosure. That has changed. The credit form clearly is asking for descriptions of interior spaces and anticipated volumes and the lease agreement is clearly negated as a way of compliance.
Can LEED User provide some guidance on this? This is after all a Prerequisite issue.
If you had a tilt-up, cold dark shell, distribution warehouse that could have 1 tenant or as many as 4 tenants, how would you address interior spaces and anticipated volumes narratives and floor plan uploads? Or would you just assume that all these explicit requirements on the C&S credit form are not actually necessary in this case and use Special Circumstances to explain that you obviously can't supply this much like an executed lease agreement?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11478 thumbs up
March 28, 2013 - 1:11 pm
Michelle, the one Interpretation we reference above does say "in the building," but I think that's misleading in reference to your question because it's answering a different question. I wouldn't take it too literally in reference to a question of whether collection can be outside the building.Basically, per the first FAQ above, LEED would like to see some collection points within the building, but the location of the dedicated space is somewhat flexible as long as it is a workable solution for the project.With reference to the earlier thread that Lisa Fabula commented on, I thought her advice was good, and do you have any review comments or GBCI feedback that has brought this question up again?I think in your situation I would prefer to be able to include some specifics in my LEED Online documentation—acknowledging that you don't know who the tenant will be, but demonstrating that you've thought through how to approach these requirements, no matter what kind of tenant(s) you get. A narrative with some drawings showing what the solution would be for a single distribution tenant vs. four diverse tenants, for example.Given the important of prereqs and the uncertainties you're feeling here, I wouldn't hestitate to contact GBCI directly and ask what they are expecting in the situation.
Michelle Rosenberger
PartnerArchEcology
523 thumbs up
March 28, 2013 - 2:42 pm
Hi Tristan,
Thanks for the quick response. It's easy to say don't take it too literally, but in your post and Lisa's, you are both indicating that you do think some kind of effort needs to be put into showing some differentiated space inside an open unbuilt out warehouse which would be dedicated to recyclable collection. And substantiating the size of that space with some kind of information relative to "potential" tenants and "potential" configurations.
Since there are no actual requirements to meet in terms of sizing even if you do know who the tenant is, on what basis would anyone evaluate the information I provide?
My question is about meeting the prerequisite but also about time and money spent on metrics for metrics sake. Yes, I could create possible scenarios and indicate possible solutions purely for the sake of LEED compliance. But this would simply be an excercise. Like most things in C&S, we do not have control over this aspect of the building's use unless we put it in the lease agreement. Yet the lease agreement approach is precluded for this measure.
I guess it's pretty hard to put something in the lease that doesn't have any specific requirement to meet. And I'm back to square one. I will take it up with GBCI reviewers and post the outcome. Thanks for the perspective and the patience.
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11478 thumbs up
March 28, 2013 - 2:55 pm
The lack of specificity of the MPp1 requirements is a double-edged sword. Let us know how it goes.
Michelle Rosenberger
PartnerArchEcology
523 thumbs up
April 10, 2013 - 5:09 pm
Hi Tristan,
I got a response from reviewers on this issue.
"In the case of a cold, dark warehouse we do not have any requirements as to how this must be physically accommodated inside of the building. We do require that recycling be addressed in tenant guidelines and that if they design/construct an exterior recycling or trash storage area that it be large enough to accommodate reasonable expected needs for recycling purposes.
They cannot build an area for trash only without accommodating recycling.
I agree that there is no benefit in creating possible interior plans. If they are not designing/building the exterior trash/recycling enclosure they are likely to have identified a couple of possible locations for it (as it simply must be
accommodated somewhere convenient on site), so it seems likely that they could call out possible locations for the enclosure and speak to the fact that it is large enough to accommodate both trash and recycling."
So despite the language on the form and a mandatory requirement for a floor plan, it is still the outside enclosure that is the focus of this credit.