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 over 235 heavily wooded acres. Various trails and elevated boardwalks, which connect the nature center outlying stations with the main orientation center, were sited to minimize or eliminate removal of existing trees and almost all (except the grasslands trail) are fully shaded by existing vegetation. We plan to use the shading option for demonstrating compliance for reducing heat islands. A tree survey has been conducted in the parking area in order to protect trees during construction and will allow us to easily produce "a site plan demonstrating areas of paving, landscaping (with species), and building footprint to support the declaration." In order to document that 30% of the site\'s non-roof impervious surfaces are shaded, we are going to need to count some of the non-parking lot area; however, a tree survey has not been conducted for the majority of the LEED Site and would be extremely cost-prohibitive due to the size of our site and the number of trees. Therefore, we are writing this CIR to see if an alternative strategy for documentation submittal is acceptable. Due to an eighteen-month construction schedule, we have the opportunity to take photographs at approximately solar noon on June 21 in 2005 and 2006 in the areas where a tree survey has not been conducted. In addition to our site plan, which will show the trees in the parking area and illustrate all impervious surfaces, we would like to submit photographs of all the other non-roof impervious surfaces and visually document the existing shade on the trails and boardwalks. Before we proceeded under this assumption, we wanted to receive feedback on the likely outcome of this strategy. Thank you. (If the above strategy is not sufficient or the USGBC requires additional verification, as an additional exhibit a site aerial with an overlay of all proposed boardwalks in outlying areas of the project (where survey information does not exist) could be provided to illustrate the existing tree masses that provide nearly 100% of shade cover for those surfaces.)