Comments on: ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ will be Green https://www.greenprophet.com/2010/08/ground-zero-mosque-green/ Sustainable news for the Middle East Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:53:56 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Nick https://www.greenprophet.com/2010/08/ground-zero-mosque-green/#comment-8493 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:53:56 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=27327#comment-8493 Happy to give anyone more information if they are looking for any, feel free to contact me nicholas.katz@gmail.com

]]> By: Nick https://www.greenprophet.com/2010/08/ground-zero-mosque-green/#comment-8492 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:52:40 +0000 http://www.greenprophet.com/?p=27327#comment-8492 I had to comment on Jon’s article from Grist as well, but site selection under the LEED Certification system is in fact one of the categories that LEED treats most fairly. The United States Green Building Council also re-weighted the entire point system in 2009 to adjust for discrepancies within their ratings system, giving Energy and Atmosphere more points but keeping the weighting of Site Selection fairly similar to what they had previously as the USGBC understands the significance of where a building is located on the larger picture of the carbon footprint of not just the building but its inhabitants.

I do like this article, but I have to say that it is way off base with regard to LEED. The treatment of Site Selection within the LEED Certification is in fact one of its greatest strengths, not “one of the major flaws.” I am a LEED AP and have worked with green property for the entirety of my career (as a commercial broker as well as a green building, development and retrofitting consultant) tand while there is certainly much to gripe about with the LEED system, one of it’s strongest features is that it does value site selection well. I think most green practitioners would agree with me as well.

I assume this building will built under the New Construction guidelines for LEED. It could fit into core and shell or commercial interiors as well, but I would expect NC to be what they go with. There are relatively equivalent points provided for site selection under these other guidelines for site selection, but here are some basics for New Construction. There are 110 points available to be garnered under the New Construction guidelines. There are 7 sub-sections and Site Selections (the points you are mentioning) is the 2nd largest category, only superseded by Energy & Atmosphere. In terms of the mosques location, it can receive a total of 12 Points (! -which is a HUGE portion of total points-) within the Site Selection category. 1 point for general site selection, 5 points for Development Density and Community Connectivity, and 6 points for Public Transportation Access. These are the max points for each of these sub-categories, but without any extra effort, this Mosque will inevitably get the full 12 points. This means that over 10% of the TOTAL possible points to be awarded under the New Construction guidelines are and can be awarded just for locating the property conveniently in terms of the items you mentioned in the above article so I have to argue that LEED actually treats this portion of the rating system incredibly well.

Check out the checklist if you want to see more information on the systems and how the points are attributed: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=220

Nick Katz, LEED AP

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