Ours is a 1,70,000 sq.ft corporate office in a plot area of 2 acres, coming up at Gurgaon, near New Delhi, India. We have a query on the Urban Redevelopment credit (SS credit 2.0) under LEED version 2.1 NC. ITC centre project site, which is located at Sector 32, Gurgaon, has been reserved as Institutional area. As part of area development process, the local Government has already developed urban infrastructures like, roads, drainage, water supply system, Power distribution, fire station, Public Transport, Police station, etc. This place has seen tremendous growth in the recent past. While some of the corporate have already completed construction and occupied the buildings, some of them are in the process of construction. Local Government has communicated to all the plot owners to start their construction within the stipulated time. The local byelaws stipulate a maximum floor area ratio (FAR) of 1.0, which translates to a development density of 87120 sq.ft/acre. Our building is being constructed using maximum available FAR, which is higher than the LEED requirement of 60000 sqft/acre. It is expected that the plot owners would construct their buildings by utilizing full FAR (Translate to 87120 sft). We are one of the few early occupants in this locality and surrounding plot owners are yet to start their construction. As such, though our project exceeds the desired average development density of 60000 sq.ft/acre, if calculated considering the average development density of the area, the same works out to be less than 60000 sqft/acre at present in the absence of surrounding development. Eventually, the development density would exceed 80000 sq.ft/acre in the near future. With this assumption, it is expected that the development density of surrounding areas would far exceed the LEED requirement, once all the buildings come up. Can we claim this credit by calculating the development densities that would eventually emerge, once all the surrounding buildings come in place?
The project does not meet the intent of this credit. The LEED v2.1 Reference Guide, May 2003, states on page 20 that "the general approach for achieving this credit is to give preference to sites within an existing urban fabric." Such an approach reduces dependency on automobile transportation and creates mixed use opportunities by providing a wide array of commercial, residential, recreational, and service functions within close proximity in a revitalized urban setting with existing infrastructure. Your project is not consistent with such an approach, given that it is a new development that does not revitalize an existing urban environment (rather, it falls within an area reserved for "institutional" new construction) and that new infrastructure was created for the development of this sector. Applicable internationally.