LEED Analysis: ISU\IWU HFH Collegiate Home

Community Resources and Transit

Jeremy Meciej

Intent:

-          To encourage the building of LEED homes in development patterns that allow for walking, biking, or public transit. The payoff of this is that it minimizes the use and dependency of automobiles and their associated impacts on the environment.

There are three different ways to measure the community resources, and the points awarded are based off of the amounts in certain walking distances from the house.

Transit Services

-          Transit services include a variety of different things that can be included in the qualification area. A transit stop is considered something that has a stop for train, bus or ferry that passes through. They are calculated by accounting for how many stops a transit center has within a half mile radius of the house. Then multiply each stop by number of bus, train, ferry that passes through, per day.  Then you add the overall number of rides at each stop within a half mile together. [i]

Community Resources

-          Community resource types can be counted up to two times, for example, if there were three banks within a quarter mile, you would only be able to count two of them.  Basic community resource types are:

o   Arts and entertainment centers

o   Banks

o   Community or civic centers

o   Convenience store

o   Daycare Center

o   Fire Station

o   Gym

o   Laundry/ Dry Cleaner

o   Library

o   Doctor/Dentist office

o   Pharmacy

o   Police Station

o   Post office

o   Place of worship

o   Post office

o   Restaurant

o   School

o   Supermarket [ii]

5.1 Basic Community Resources

- The way to measure this is to account for the amount of buildings within a quarter     mile to a half mile. If there are four basic community resources within a quarter mile, seven basic community resources within a half a mile and a transit service that offers 30 or more rides within a half a mile then the building would gain 1 point in certification. (combined bus, train, and ferry) [iii]

5.2 Extensive Community Resources

- The measurements are the same in all the categories but the amount of resources are different. Within a quarter mile of the house there needs to be seven basic community resources, eleven within a half mile, and then a transit service that offers 60 or more rides per weekday. (combined bus, train, and ferry)[iv]

5.3 Outstanding Community Resources

- For the building to qualify under this classification the home needs to be within a quarter mile of 11 basic community resources, 14 within a half a mile, and within a transit service that offers 125 or more rides per weekday (combined bus, train, and ferry) [v]

Transit map

[ii] ibid

[iii] ibid

[iv] ibid

[v] ibid