Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2

Inquiry

This project is a high-rise residential unit in downtown Boston which has 285 dwelling units. The City of Boston does not have any zoning requirements for parking; however, the Boston Transportation Department does make district-based recommendations for parking capacity goals and guidelines. The Boston Transportation Department approved 393 spaces and the project currently has 363 actual spaces. Of the 363 spaces, the BTD required that 93 of the parking spaces be provided for public parking since there was previously a parking facility on the project site. Therefore, there are 270 spaces provided for residents and 90 spaces for public usage. The residential parking space allotment was determined as stated in CIR dated 4/28/2003 per the Institute of Transportation Engineers "Parking Generation 3rd Edition" (2003). This standard states there should be 1.37 vehicles per dwelling unit (285), which for this project would be 390 spaces. If this number is reduced by 25% as per the CIR, then the max number of residential parking spaces would be 293 spaces, which is greater than the 270 provided. We feel that only the residential spaces need to be included in the calculation since the Boston Transportation Department required the 93 public spaces which are not for use by the building occupants. The second part of this credit requires infrastructure for the alternative transportation. Given the urban location of this project, the opportunity for alternative transportation is very wide. Since this is a residential project, it is believed that a Zipcar within the building would be of most benefit to the residents as opposed to ride share preferred parking. The Zipcar will have a preferred parking spot within the garage and a letter of commitment for a two year contract for 1 car has already been acquired. The property manager is also working with Zipcar to get discounted membership for the residents. There currently 54 zip cars with in 1/4 mile radius along with multiple train, bus, and subway stations giving residents enough options to not need to have their own cars. A ride share board will also be in the building located in the parking office and visible to all residents. Per CIR dated 5/24/04 it is stated that we must prove that the zip car can serve 5% of residents. We have acquired a letter from Zipcar which provided trend data stating that the current member to car ratio in Boston is 44. The FTE of the building is 700 people and at the ratio Zipcar provided, 1 zip car could serve 6.3% of residents. There are also 54 zip cars with in a 1/4 mile radius of the site which would serve 100% of the residents Zipcars within walking distance of the site, per the trend data provided. The site is also close to public transportation, including bus lines, a commuter rail station, and two subway stations which give the residents many options of alternative transportation. The CIR may be summarized with the following two questions: 1. Is our approach of separating the building parking allotment from the public parking requirement per Boston Transportation Management Department acceptable? 2. Does the letter provided by Zipcar, which includes actual trend data for typical Boston resident Zipcar usage, sufficient for justifying that 5% of the building occupants are served adequately by 1 shared car in this particular case?