Restaurant Lighting as a Lease Requirement

Technically speaking, I believe that you can only use a lease agreement toward compliance with a credit in the LEED CS system. That being said, you could definitely give it a shot. Make sure to include the actual lease language in your submission and make sure that you're lease is written as specifically as possible. Please note that the language must be binding and cannot be something that would read more like a Tenant Guideline. It must be an actual requirement. Couldn't you also take the approach of just submitting your documentation with the temporary lighting fixture design? Multi-occupant spaces just need the ability to control their lighting; they don't need individual controls. Presumably your restaurant dining area will have lighting control of some form and then you could submit with that design. Good luck! Lauren

Lauren, We are certifying our project as NC 2009 but it is mixed-use with the top 3 floors residential and the bottom floor leased to commercial tenants. We have been proceeding under multiple credits with the idea that the commercial area can be certified with LEED CS compliance methods. Since a few design features involved in these credits are going to be part of the tenant TI, we are using a lease addendum requiring tenant compliance for LEED. Based on your reply to the question above, it seems your position is this is not acceptable. Can someone please verify we are ok in this approach? If so, can we include lease language for IEQ 6.1 compliance in the commercial areas?

Joel, As I do not work directly for the USGBC I cannot guarantee compliance paths that are atypical. I wasn't trying to suggest that your approach is defnitely not going to work, only to suggest that I'm not certain it will. If others have thoughts on having taken the approach Joel outlines and have had success it would be excellent to share those details.