It is helpful to plant trees in vegetated strips within hardscape areas to maximize the shading potential. Strips can be placed between parking rows, or as a vegetated buffer between surface parking and walkways.

Consult with a landscape architect to specify native and adapted tree species with large canopies. This strategy can reduce the number of trees that need to be planted, watered, and maintained—while providing the maximum shading potential.

Explore integrating hardscape shading by trees.

Shading by Trees and Vegetated Landscape

Although an area of hardscape may meet two different requirements, the area can only be counted once. For example, pavement that is both light-colored and shaded may not be counted twice in credit calculations.

Determine the square footage of all non-roof hardscape on your site. You'll need to integrate the strategies below for 50% or more of this area.

Option 1: Treat 50% of Site Hardscapes 

After you have reduced your parking hardscape as much as possible through reduced parking spaces, stacked parking, minimizing sidewalks, and other strategies, try the following steps to reduce heat island effect even further.

Some strategies for limiting the amount of hardscape include: 

Explore ways to share parking with adjacent sites, and encourage carpooling and other strategies to reduce the amount of parking area needed.