LEED-ND: NEW RATING SYSTEMS FOR GREEN NEIGHBORHOODS IS INAUGURATED -- part 6

LEED-ND Justin Horner, Transportation Policy Analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said LEED-ND works for small villages as well as big cities. “A major misconception about smart growth is that it will transform our neighborhoods into Manhattan. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We need density to create markets for local businesses and to make transit feasible, but most people would be surprised at how modest that density threshold is. What LEED-ND does is give us a concrete image of what smart growth actually is -- and we think people will like what they see.” Horner points out that in a relatively short period of time, LEED accreditation became a respected national standard for sustainable building development. He said LEED-ND will take LEED’s market cache and apply it to entire neighborhoods, so consumers can “separate real sustainable development from the pretenders.” “LEED-ND is the first systematic attempt to really define what smart growth is. The system’s measures and metrics not only provide guidance on how to minimize the environmental impacts of development, they also reflect the latest in cutting-edge urban design,” he explained. “These are the places people will want to live. “Historically, environmentalists have been great at saying `no’ to development, but we can no longer ignore the environmental consequences of where we live and how we live,” Horner continued. “LEED-ND opens the door for environmentalists to say `yes.’”