This issue seemed to be in question on a few other posts so I thought I would weigh in on a recent experience. I currently have a CI project that is located atop a highrise building in Atlanta - we are one of hundreds of tenants. The building is certified Silver under the LEED EB v.2 rating system and has numerous other CI spaces in it. The entire building is non smoking and has the 25' policy, but no exterior signage exists because it was not required in v.2 of the EB rating system. When responding to the first round of review comments, we stated that we were attempting Case 1 Option 2 and explained that there were no operable windows or doors to the exterior and the air handling unit serving our floor drew in air from the roof, which was not susceptible to ETS. In addition, we provided a letter from the building managment confirming the no smoking policy. We recieved our review back with 65 points awarded but this prerequisite denied because we could not confirm that a signage system communicating the exterior smoking policy was in place.
Is it reasonable to expect a tenant to be accountable for a public space in a shared building that is outside of their scope and control? Either I am missing something (which is always a possibility) or this is one of the more egregious examples of lack of common sense on the part of the reviewer that I have seen.
Emily Catacchio
Sustainability SpecialistWight and Company
610 thumbs up
October 23, 2011 - 8:22 pm
Ellen,Not that I disagree with you, but could you ask the building management to add signs at the enterances? Clearly the reviewer is adhering to the letter of the law here. Did you look for any CIRs to support this compliance path? I assume you're going to appeal this ruling?
Ellen Mitchell
331 thumbs up
October 24, 2011 - 6:39 pm
Hi Emily,
Unfortunately exterior signage is not an option. The building management feels like they have taken the necessary steps to fullfil their LEED requirements - who can blame them? They also have other CI Certified projects in their building, so they are having a hard time understanding why we are different.
We are looking into our options. The most frustrating aspect is that the requirements for Option 2 seem to change. In the denial response, we were given the option of providing a building management letter stating the smoking policy. When we asked why that wasn't mentioned in the first round of review comments, the response back said nothing about a letter, but told us we must provide No Smoking signage inside our office space. This seems to make even less sense as the entire building is non-smoking under both building management and City of Atlanta ordinance. So I guess now my question is....is it reasonable to think any employee or visitor would be tempted to light up inside an office? What exactly is the point of these signs?
Maybe the more important question is where are either of these options found? I have scoured all the interpretations and discussions, and can find nothing on either one.
Needless to say, we are quite frustrated.
Ben Stanley
Senior Sustainability ManagerWSP - Built Ecology
LEEDuser Expert
250 thumbs up
October 27, 2011 - 11:25 am
Hi Emily,
That's frustrating on many levels but particularly because the issue at hand seems nit picky rather than something that will have a substantive impact on the operations of the building. But, I think that there are some good actions that you can take.
Based on your description, it seems like the review team is getting caught up in the requirement included on the credit form to "provide evidence of signage communicating the exterior
smoking policy". Of course, signage isn't the only way to effectively communicate the smoking policy to the occupants in your tenant space or in the rest of the building. But there are likely some other mechanisms in place to actively communicate the policy to all building occupants and specifically the occupants in your tenant space. I would focus on developing a narrative that stresses the point that the smoking policy is actively communicated to occupants in ways other than signage and provide detail about those mechanisms. In that way, signage is unnecessary because your building is able to get to the result that matters, which is that people are not smoking in the building or within 25ft of it. To bolster this argument, I would describe the procedures that building management has in place to make sure that people aren't smoking within 25ft of the door. For example, security or other building personnel direct anyone who is smoking by the door to move further away.
I've seen this type of approach work with EBOM projects and in my mind it's silly to have signage as the only communication tool available to project teams.
It might make sense to try and communicate your line of thought to the review team through the messages tab on LEED Online before submitting the appeal, especially if you feel that a new issue was raised that was not included in the Preliminary Review.
Ellen Mitchell
331 thumbs up
October 27, 2011 - 12:53 pm
Hi Ben,
We have already begun communication with GBCI and are in the process of trying to come to a resolution. I agree with you and argued that the problem lies in the form. It seems to me that the signage requirement for Option 1 is completely reasonable and is intended mainly for projects in which the tenant occupies the whole building or at least controls some street level areas. Option 2 seems to be more applicable to cases like ours in which there is no public exterior space, but unfortunately the form doesn't break out the requirements per option and so the signage upload requirement appears regardless. We did upload a building management letter confirming the non smoking policy as well as a detailed narrative explaining how no ETS can get into the tenant space through windows, entries or air handling units. That should have been plenty, but the reviewer only sees that we didn't fulfill the signage requirement and denies the credit without analyzing the situation.
I will certainly post an update once we get things straightened out. Hopefully this signage aspect won't be a deal-breaker for future CI projects.
Ellen Mitchell
331 thumbs up
November 7, 2011 - 11:06 am
Update: the final ruling is as follows (I'm paraphrasing):
In order for our project to demonstrate compliance under Option 2, signage must be installed at all exterior CI project entrances which communicates the exterior smoking policy to all occupants and visitors. Projects without direct access to the exterior can provide a copy of the LEED CI or base building smoking policy in lieu of signage. However, as our project has a terrace space (which is completely non-smoking and inaccessible to the public), the policy was not an option for us. We had to provide signage at the terrace entry.
This still seems a little nit picky, but GBCI did waive our appeal fee due to the inconsistency of the rulings, so I consider that a successful compromise.