Location and Transportation
What the category covers
LT rewards projects that sit in walkable, transit-served, resource-rich places and that manage parking demand. Credits include LEED for Neighborhood Development location, Sensitive Land Protection, High Priority Site, Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses, Access to Quality Transit, Bicycle Facilities, Reduced Parking Footprint, and Green Vehicles.
Concepts to know
- Sensitive land: floodplains, prime farmland, land within 100 ft of wetlands, endangered species habitat, water bodies.
- High priority site: brownfield, infill, historic building, or site in a designated economic development area.
- Diverse uses: count qualifying uses within a 1/2-mile walking route; at least one must be a supermarket or grocery.
- Transit distances: 1/2-mile walking distance for rail, light rail, and BRT; 1/4-mile for bus stops.
- Bicycle facilities: short-term parking for peak visitors, long-term parking plus showers/changing for regular occupants.
Traps
- Distances are walking routes, never straight-line radius. A site across a highway with no crossing fails.
- Uses must already exist (or be funded/under construction where the credit permits); planned-but-unbuilt retail does not count.
- LT has essentially no prerequisites in v4 BD+C - questions implying an LT prerequisite are usually testing this exact point.
- Parking credit rewards reducing parking, not adding it; no new parking minimums is a common alternate path.
Worked example
A candidate site is 0.4 miles (straight line) from a light-rail station but 0.7 miles by the pedestrian network. It fails the transit threshold - measure the actual walk, and remember 1/2 mile is roughly a 10-minute walk.