This credit is geared toward projects that may have further development planned on the same site. It is meant to ensure that future development on your project site maintains the environmental considerations of the initial design.

First, you must develop a master plan for known or hypothetical future development. Then, you must choose at least four of the seven available credits that the current project is pursuing (see details below), and recalculate these for the future development outlined in the master plan. You need to show that the master-planned development would earn those credits.

Master planning is not for everyone

The master planning credit isn’t applicable to all projects—if your site is completely built out, there’s no reason to develop a site master plan, and you're not eligible for the credit. But master planning can be especially helpful for schools that plan on pursuing LEED certification for the future site development.

If the school board in your district typically develops a master plan for individual sites, this credit can be a good one to pursue. But in districts where master planning isn’t standard practice, this credit can get very documentation-intensive, and you may decide that it isn’t worth your time.

A lot of cooks in the kitchen

The documentation for this credit requires that you demonstrate collaboration between the school board (or the appropriate decision-making body) and the design team. Coordination between so many parties and interests can be challenging—anticipate some roadblocks in establishing a master plan for development that may take place years into the future.

Low-hanging fruit…

Assuming that you know in the early planning stages that your project will attempt this credit, the four easiest credits to document are:

• SSc1: Site Selection; 
• SSc5.1: Site Development—Protect or Restore Habitat; 
• SSc5.2: Site Development—Maximize Open Space; and 
• SSc7.1: Heat Island Effect—Nonroof.

… and the not-so-low-hanging fruit

On the other hand, recalculating these credits can be much more labor-intensive:

• SSc6.1: Stormwater Design—Quantity Control; 
• SSc6.2: Stormwater Design—Quality Control; and 
• SSc8: Light Pollution Reduction. 

There is value to documenting any of these credits, though, and it makes sense to choose ones that are most in line with the project’s priorities.