First public comment draft of LEED v5 BD+C/ID+C: Overall and Appendix

One of the first credits that a project team should work on in V4 is the Site Assessment Credit. It allows project teams to get an understanding of a project site and how it is nested in place so that opportunities and synergies between credits can be explored and optimized. Although there is a new Prerequisite in V5 related to climate resilience, why is the site assessment credit not included in the Integrative Process, Planning and Assessments Category? Dropping this Assessment is a step backwards as I am concerned and I would like to see it maintained and maybe enhanced by using language from the Sites Rating System as part of the mandatory assessments in this category.  

One of the main criticisms of LEED I hear from consultants is that LEED is too much paperwork with not added value to the project. What often happens is the LEED consultant recycles paperwork from past projects. Unfortunately, the LEED v5 draft really pushes for more paperwork with the prerequisites:

• Climate Resilience Assessment
• Social Equity Assessment
• Carbon Assessment
• Resilient Site Design
• Operational Carbon Projection and Decarbonization Plan
• Planning for Zero Waste Organization
• Assess Embodied Carbon

That is a lot of paperwork to push onto a project team.

A lot of the LEED-CI language seems to just reproduce the NC language in ways that don;t make sense for CI. For example the accessibiltiy prereq references exterior entrances and the resilient spaces credit references operable windows. Please clarify the expectation for CI projects to meet credit intent/requirements as it applies within the project scope. 

To Mark's point above about the paperwork burden, I think all of these planning efforts are important but the more they can be met without NEW documents generated just for LEED, the better. E.g. meeting minutes, marked up drawings, previously conducted campus or corporate level assessments. It would also be helpful for those requirements to scale down for CI/CS and small scope projects (e.g. warehouse, renovation with no site scope) so they're not having to write up lengthy justifications for NOT addressing something.