Documentation Mismatch After a Boundary Change
A 30-acre mixed-use project is registered as LEED ND: Plan. The original boundary and site plan showed 540 dwelling units, 120,000 square feet of commercial space, and 1.5 parking spaces per unit. Six months before submission, the team adds a 6-acre parcel for a parking garage, reduces dwelling units to 480, and reduces parking to 1.1 spaces per unit. The design team submits the original site plan, density calculation, and parking demand study because the new numbers are 'close enough' and the old plan is already in the narrative. The added parcel contains a historic warehouse that will be reused as retail. The project is pursuing Compact Development, Reduced Parking Footprint, and Historic Resource Preservation. The reviewer notices the boundary on the site plan does not match the legal description.
1. What is wrong with submitting the original package, and what must be recalculated?
Read the worked answer
The package is internally inconsistent. The legal description, site plan, and density calculation describe different boundaries, so every metric that depends on area or denominator is unreliable. Recalculate the boundary area at 36 acres, the dwelling units at 480, and the density at about 13.3 units per acre; the original 18 units per acre cannot be carried forward. Recalculate parking at 1.1 spaces per unit against the correct unit count, and recheck the parking demand study because it was prepared for a different program. Re-measure transit and diverse-use distances from the new boundary, and confirm the historic warehouse is inside the project boundary and is actually being reused. Do not submit the old site plan 'because the numbers are close'; the mismatch is a documentation failure, not a rounding issue.
2. How should the team handle the boundary change and the Plan commitments?
Read the worked answer
Update the registration and all Plan documents before submission. Replace the legal description and site plan, revise the density and parking worksheets, and write a change narrative explaining the added parcel, the unit reduction, and the parking change. Check that the project still meets the minimum density and all prerequisites; if the new density falls below a threshold, the credit claim may need to change. For Plan certification, any commitments used to earn credits, such as the historic reuse, parking management, or infrastructure, must be binding on the developer and must match the revised boundary. If the change occurs after certification, ask the certification body whether an addendum or new certification is required.
3. What documentation and version-control records should be retained?
Read the worked answer
Retain a version-controlled record: boundary survey and legal description, approved site plan, unit and commercial square footage schedules, parking demand study, historic reuse lease or binding commitment, calculation worksheets, and correspondence with the reviewer. Keep old versions only as an audit trail, clearly marked superseded. The reviewer should be able to trace every credit number back to a single current drawing and a single current calculation.