Off-Site Parking

Hi Jeannie, Take a look at interpretation 10202 as it goes into more detail about the requirements for including parking outside of the LEED boundary. A heads up that you will need to demonstrate these spaces are marked with signage as designated for your LEED project only, so there may be some added coordination with the city.

If your project is assigned or only has access to a certain portion of the garage, then assume 5% of that number. Perhaps there is an agreement you can reference to show this number? Or make assumptions based on how many companies have access to the garage and prorate from there.

For my projects with garages, I've always used spaces on the first floor, then spaces on subsequent floors that are closest to elevators/stairs as preferred and this has been approved on numerous projects. "Preferred" includes both closest to the entrance of the building and also other preferable spots, such as covered spaces in a garage. If you have multiple types of parking (ie surface, podium, garage) then you should provide equal ratios of preferred parking for all depending on how the total parking is split between them.

Jeannie - Did you get an answer to your metered space question? We have a few spaces that are going to be reserved for short term (15 or 30 min) parking that could be considered 'preferred' but given the time restriction I'm wondering if we even need to worry about including those spaces in our parking count.

Metered parking in a garage open to the public I would exclude from the total and consider not part of the project, as it wouldn't really serve the project occupants. I'd think of that as a separate parking area.   Short term parking within the LEED project lot is a different case though - those spaces are serving the project and would count toward the total, and it would be tough to justify locating them closer to the entrance than the LEED preferred parking. Kind of a gray area but I think if they're functioning as a drop-off/loading area (like at a school drop off or hotel check in) you can exclude but if they're functioning as parking (like for retail shoppers) you'd need to include them and locate preferred spaces closer.
 

Thanks, Emily, that's sort of where I was landing as well. I have emailed GBCI for guidance and will post if/when I get that. However, my gut says we'll treat it like a separate type of parking (employee vs. visitor, short term vs. long term, etc.) and meet the credit requirements for the 'short-term' parking as well as the remainder of the 'long-term' parking.

That makes sense, especially if it's a large enough number of short-term spaces to "feel like" a separate lot.