Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.1

Inquiry

Our LEED site contains multiple buildings for a nature center, which covers a large acreage of land. Our team decided to collect rainwater for irrigating landscaping adjacent to the orientation center via a permanent irrigation system. After completing initial calculations, we determined we couldn\'t collect enough rainwater to also irrigate the native landscaping buffer strip along the parking lot and entrance road, which is away from the orientation center buildings. Our current plan is to install a temporary irrigation system, fed by potable water, for this strip for an establishment period of 2 years. The remainder of the project\'s LEED site will not have any irrigation system as it is native vegetation. The two listed submittals for this credit (no potable water for irrigation and no permanent irrigation system) appear to be an either/or situation and each seems to apply to the entire "project site." We feel our methodology meets the intent of this credit, which is to "limit or eliminate the use of potable water for landscape irrigation"; however, before we proceeded we wanted to receive feedback on the likely outcome of this strategy. As we have multiple buildings and areas that make up our LEED site, we are inquiring to see if we can use both submittal methods for different parts of our site in order to meet this credit\'s intent. As part of the corresponding committee for the LEED for Multiple Buildings, we consulted the draft LEED Campus Application Guide but found no Supplementary Campus Application Guidance related to this topic. If a ruling is made in favor of this proposal, we would appreciate seeing the Application Guide reflect this change as well as LEED-NC v2.2. Thank you.