Building facade facing circulation network not more than 1ft

I'm a bit confused with why LEED ND is putting a point on this specific criteria. But before that, please correct me if I understand the criteria correctly: The ground floor face of the building (which contains the entries, and not the whole or upper facade) must be not more than 1ft away from the sidewalk. In practice, we usually give a good distance between the facade (most especially the entries) and the sidewalk, as it gives breaks from heavy pedestrian traffic from the sidewalk and the volume of people coming in and out of a building. Also, the distance is an opportunity to provide vegetation on the frontage which potentially is where we get the open space in LEED BDC.