Services within a college campus

Yes, as long as those facilities are on the approved list, and as long as they are open to the general public.

Tristan, is your understanding that the term "general public" means absolutely anyone, or can this term be qualified in the case of a closed campus like a military base or a private university? i am working on projects at both locales, including a dormitory at a private university. the only users of the the dormitory (students, staff, visiting parents) will have access to at least 10 of the listed facilities, however, since some of these are only available for university use our reviewer is saying they do not meet the definition of "general public." I would think that a case could be made that "general public" should be interpreted within the context of your building users, since the credit is related to the building and it's users and their access to the listed services.

I'm having the same issue with a military facility. The project received a review clarification that the base services must "...be available to everyone, and not restricted to campus occupants." However, the very nature of a military base is security. All services listed are accessible to building occupants. Clearly the military values providing services for their base occupants and go to a lot of trouble to provide them so users don't have to go off base for services such as dry cleaners. It doesn't seem right to penalize them for that. Does anyone have experience attaining this through special circumstances?

Norma,
I am similar situation as you have described above. Is there any further information you can provide on how you responded to the request for clarification about basicc services on the military base ? Was the credit accepted? Thanks.

Edgar, I believe the intent of the credit is to have services be available to the general public. This goes along with a general goal of LEED to create community connectivity within the general proximity (walkable) of the LEED project. Norma, I have not had experience trying to achieve this credit through special circumstances. I believe that unless the services are open to the general public (not just the building occupants) the project will not meet the requirments. Again LEED is trying to foster connectivity here and walkable communities, so a secure base, though it may be "self-sufficient," does not meet that requirment.I am interested in the outcomes of both your projects, please consider sharing here.Komal, without knowledge of how Edgar and Norma's projects turned out, I will say I believe services must be open to the public.

Komal & Emily,

I connected directly with the GBCI about the issue and received this response regarding military bases, "there are very limited occasions where the basic services would not need to be open to the general public. For example, if a project is on a military base where access to the base is limited to only military personnel, then it could be permissible to include community services only open to military base inhabitants." After I provided the project ID information, they spoke directly with the review team and cleared the credit. When I asked where this information was published for future reference, GBCI indicated there may be a Credit Interpretation in the works, but didn't indicate a time frame for it.

I think the key to the credit in this case is that the services are open to the building users. Even though it is a walkable community, for the soldiers, it's not viable for the base to be open for public consumption. It's important to note the GBCI doesn't classify college campuses as special cases as they do military bases. Their services still need to be open to the public

I hope that helps!