Date
Inquiry

For one of the auxiliary renovation projects at the Pentagon we seek to achieve Site Credit 4.4 by providing no new parking and providing carpool spaces for 5% of FTE building occupants. Our questions are as follows:First, as we only have carpool spaces in existing parking spaces which are not considered to be within our LEED project site boundary but which are part of the overall Pentagon campus parking facilities, it is our understanding from the past Credit Rulings that we may do so without including the parking areas within our other calculations for LEED Credit compliance--please confirm this understanding. The closest carpool spots to our project are in the Pentagon\'s North Parking lot with a walk to the front door of roughly 1050 feet. These are some of the closest spots available to this project and to main Pentagon building itself.Second, the carpool spots that exist are currently designated with signage as reserved for carpool use, however the signage does not currently designate them as serving one Pentagon facility or another. Rather, they are designated as carpool spaces serving the entire Pentagon facility, which is what the Pentagon prefers. As there are multiple Pentagon Renovation facilities and phases seeking LEED Certification, this is both a campus-wide issue and an individual LEED project issue. Any designated carpool space counted for this particular project would not be counted for the same credit for a different project (i.e., we would ensure the same parking spaces weren\'t double counted). In order to demonstrate compliance with the carpooling requirement for this project (and, presumably, the others), would we need to designate specific spaces to specific projects or merely demonstrate that the number of carpooling spaces is sufficient to serve our project. Would we need to demonstrate with a campus-wide calculation that the number of carpool spaces provided serve 5% of the FTE occupants of the entire campus?

Ruling

The project is requesting guidance on the appropriate strategy for calculating the carpool space requirement on a campus where the parking is outside of the project boundary. Carpool spaces do not need to be within the project boundaries if all the parking associated with the project is similarly not within the project boundaries, and part of existing campus-wide parking. These parking areas do not need to comply with other LEED credits. Regarding several buildings sharing the same parking lot, calculation and documentation for this credit may be done either on a project by project or a campus-wide basis. Carpool spaces do not have to be signed specifically for the project building if there are enough to serve the entire population that can use the parking lot (see the equation in the LEED-NC Reference Guide). Otherwise, carpool spaces must be signed as reserved specifically for the project building. These do not have to be newly built spaces, just newly designated. If the credit is to be pursued for the individual project, the spaces should not be counted toward other LEED projects. Be sure that the parking reduction requirement of the project is met, as described in past CIRs for this credit (e.g. rulings dated 9/8/2004 and 4/28/2003). Applicable Internationally.

Internationally Applicable
On
Campus Applicable
Off