SS Credit 5.1: Site Development: Protect or Restore Habitat

LEED-NC Credit: YES | UNSURE|NO

Credit Intent

Restore damaged areas and protect undeveloped or natural areas by limiting building footprints and promoting natural and diverse plant and animal life.

Feasibility

This credit should be pursued, following Option 2, which applies to previously developed or graded sites such as the new GSB site. To attain this credit through this option, 50% of the site area (excluding building footprints) must be restored with native or adapted vegetation. In this case, the majority of the GSB site is currently covered in an asphalt parking lot. This credit can be earned by restoring grass, trees, and plants to areas surrounding GSB buildings that are now parking areas.

Analysis

The goal here is to ensure that 50% of the new GSB site not occupied by buildings is occupied by native or adapted vegetation. At this point in the design phase, we lack concrete square footage breakdowns for non-structural site components (i.e., roadways, sidewalks, or other paved surfaces). Therefore, using a simple plan drawing of the site, we can show graphically that over 50% of the non-footprint site can reasonably be expected to contain non-invasive vegetation. Achieving this credit will also help to ensure a GSB goal of providing very little separation between indoor and outdoor environments.

Figure 17: GSB site plan, with open (non building or paved) areas shaded in blue.

As we see above, there is plenty of open space not taken up by building or paving that are already shown to have trees and plants. Steps should be taken to ensure that 50% of the blue-colored open space if inhabited by vegetation. Plants, trees, and bushes already on the site should be preserved as much as possible to help meet this goal.

SS Credit 5.1: Site Development: Protect or Restore Habitat

LEED-NC Credit: YES | UNSURE|NO

Also, there is a lot of native shrubbery and trees already in place along sections Serra Street and Campus Drive that border the new GSB site, as shown in Figure 18 below. A lot of this vegetation and be preserved simply by following Stanford’s own landscaping policies, which include the following:[1]

  • “All plant materials…shall match those types that have shown successful growth and low maintenance at Stanford.”
  • “Plant selection shall be compatible with the natural limitations of climate, weather, and soil conditions…”
  • “Plants with excessive maintenance…are not acceptable.”

Because areas such as those along Serra Street already have native vegetation, it may be beneficial and cost-effective to keep these areas intact during construction, rather than demolish and rebuild.

Figure 18: Native vegetation along Serra Street

Photo by John Millea, 5/14/07.

To assure this credit, the total building footprint and covered areas must be subtracted from the total site area. This value should be multiplied by 0.5, and then resulting square footage should be restored with native or adapted vegetation. To receive an additional Innovation Credit, 75% of the non footprint area would need to be covered, which is very possible in this case and should be explored.

Area Calculation Method

Building footprint estimate:[2]Audcom/Lib39096 square feet

Faculty Off.25891

Arguello St.10960

Serra Mall39512

Covered area74324

TOTAL189,783

For Credit 4.1: (Total Site Area - 189,783) x 0.5 = Area restored with vegetation

For Credit 4.1 + Innovation Credit: (Total Site Area - 189,783) x 0.75 = Area restored with vegetation

[1] Stanford University Landscaping Guidelines,

[2] ARUP, GSB Area Takedown -- based on 1st level areas as an estimate for building footprint.