What’s in a site?
When YPAL’s Green Team decided to build a LEED certified project there were two major questions that needed to be addressed first: what type of building are we going to build and where are we going to build it? Seemingly easy questions, however YPAL as an organization has never built anything and we own no property.
The first question was the easy one; Habitat for Humanity has the expertise and infrastructure in place to build homes. So after a few phone calls we were able to get Rob Locke, Habitat’s Executive Director, “cautiously excited” about partnering with YPAL on a LEED Home. One problem solved.
The second questions was not so easy; where to build the house? Typically, Habitat pulls property from their inventory for each project, but we of course had to make it more difficult. We needed a site that was easily accessible to our members, our sponsors, the press, met the requirements for LEED points and most importantly was FREE. No problem, right? Luckily, Councilman Tandy’s office directed us down the right path to the Louisville Landbank Authority, a government agency that sells abandoned property throughout the city to responsible developers. http://www.louisvilleky.gov/Housing/Landbank+Authority+Inc.htm Believe it or not, they had a piece of property that was available right across the street from a park! Second problem solved!
But that was just the beginning, the Greenteam still needed to evaluate the property for LEED Points. As it turns out before anything is built, the site holds the key to 7 LEED points, including: existing infrastructure, previously developed site, walking distance to community resources, and access to open space. The site design was also some easy points. As you can see on the attached draft checklist, we are able to pick up 8 more points because of the size of the lot, using permeable pavers and using non-toxic pest controls.
So what’s in a site? For YPAL nearly half of our LEED credits (15 + 7 maybe points of required 35) are coming from choosing the right site.
