July/August 2010 Parking - 32

By Dirk Kestner and Kelly Levy

The Case for a Better
The emergent concept of “green” parking is both vaguely defined and poorly understood. The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system has brought the concept of “green” building to the consciousness of many owners, legislators and the general public. In an effort to construct more environmentally responsible buildings, many municipalities and institutions have adopted resolutions mandating that all new construction achieve a specified LEED rating. This is a relatively straightforward proposition for many buildings, but what does it mean for a unique structure like a parking garage? In April 2009, the USGBC launched a new version of LEED. In this latest version, a new credit weighting system, LEED 2009, was introduced to better capture the overall environmental benefit of each credit. The reweighting accounted for each credit’s contribution to 13 different environmental impacts, ranging from climate change potential to ozone depletion. LEED 2009 also established Minimum Program Requirements (MPRs), a set of minimum characteristics that a project must possess to be eligible for LEED

Way to Measure

Green

Certification. These requirements have been added to ensure that LEED is used on the building types it was designed to evaluate, primarily commercial and multifamily residential, and to protect the integrity of the LEED system. One of the MPRs is a requirement that the structure seeking certification serve at least one Full Time Equivalent (FTE) occupant or the optional credits from the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) category may not be earned. This MPR excludes most stand-alone parking structures from seeking LEED certification, as many parking structures do not have one FTE. Another MPR established by LEED 2009 is that the structure seeking certification must include a minimum of 1,000 square feet of gross floor area. This MPR has a significant impact on the applicability of the LEED rating system to parking facilities, since the gross floor area is calculated by only including enclosed space, making most stand-alone parking garages ineligible for LEED certification. As a result of the MPRs, the only parking garages eligible for LEED certification are structures that can be classified as “mixed-use” structures. It is feasible to have a garage

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National Parking Association PARKING July/August 2010



July/August 2010 Parking

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July/August 2010 Parking

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