LEED-Neighborhood Development: It’s Official (and California Already “LEEDs” the Way)

NRDC.COM. APRIL 29, 2010. By Justin Horner

In twin events today in Washington DC and Chicago, the three partners who created LEED-Neighborhood Development (NRDC, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the US Green Building Council) announced the system’s official launch.  Nearly a decade in the making, LEED-ND is the first national standard to attempt to describe and quantify what “green” actually is on the neighborhood scale.  We all know green buildings; ND gives us green neighborhoods.

As my colleague, Kaid Benfield (NRDC Smart Growth Director and one of the Founding Parents of LEED-ND) says on his blog today:

Our hope is that LEED-ND will prove to be an asset for development projects that meet the standards, separating the worthy from the pretenders and giving the worthy a stamp of approval that can help their case as they make their way through the local entitlement process.  We also hope it will help local environmentalists and citizens’ groups evaluate development proposals, and that it will provide templates for governments at all levels to borrow from as they upgrade their policies to support sustainable, green neighborhoods.

Now, you can certainly read all about ND here, here and here, but what I want to add is the California angle.  Although the system officially launched today, there’s been a pilot program on since 2007 that includes nearly 240 projects from all over the world.  Projects must first register to be evaluated by the program and then, if they qualify, they are certified. 

Of the registered projects, 18% are from California (the largest percentage of any state, province or country outside of North America) and of the certified projects, 16% are from California (again, the largest percentage of any state, province or country outside of North America).  Now note, California has about 12% of America’s total population, so the number of projects would be disproportionately large for the US even before you included the rest of the planet.

Now it may come as no surprise that California is leading the way (see AB 32 for greenhouse gas emissions, SB 375 for better land use planning, vehicle fuel economy standards for cleaner cars, TV efficiency standards to save energy, the list goes on), but it’s always nice to have pleasant and inspiring truths confirmed.

In fact (just to continue with the theme) the newest LEED-ND certified project (like, certified last week) happens to be in California, in Richmond, right up the BART line from my house.  The plan for the Miraflores project was certified LEED-ND Gold.

As you (probably)  can see from the site plan, the Miraflores project is dense, walkable and includes plenty of open space.  There’s a significant affordable housing component for seniors, a mixture of for-sale and rental units, amenities for kids, creek restoration and a significant component dedicated to urban agriculture.  There are universally-accessible units for people with disabilities, new bike paths, and plenty of trees and shade

And there’s a lot that you can’t see: the construction debris will be recycled and diverted, there’s on-site renewable energy generation, innovative storm water management strategies to avoid water pollution, and energy-efficient buildings.  It’s close to local schools and will use 100% native plantings for all landscaping. 

Oh, and did I mention that it’s also being built on a former brownfield site previously occupied by a commercial nursery (huzzahs to the City of Richmond Redevelopment Agency for the clean up and my friend Ted Bardacke at Global Green USA for the info on their project)?

Full NRDC Article