The Observation Deck

Ahmie Yeung wrote:Donald,

All new school buildings in Ohio are required to be built to LEED Silver standards. That is something the committee was informed of early on. Considering proximity to community ameneties such as the post office and such, as well as already having ample land for green space, Grant has a bit of a jump on Lincoln just by it's location - but the location keeps being cited as a negative instead of a positive for some reason that I can't really wrap my brain around. As the mother of a 5 year old, I honestly feel safer with him walking along Detroit than Clifton - the drivers are paying closer attention because they're expecting more pedestrians than Clifton traffic does, and have the traffic lights and speed limit to help with that.


Hope that helps.


Ahmie

I have no experience in LEED for schools, but I have extensive experience in LEED for New Construction and Commercial Interiors. The Sustainable Sites credits you refer to are great to achieve, but not completely necessary to gain LEED certification. And honestly, with Lakewood's size and density, you could probably get those credits anyway at a number of locations.

Can't speak with certainty about the already-redone schools, I think the Silver cert is a newer requirement tho. I've only lived in Lakewood since 2005 so I wasn't involved in the earlier phases of this, just looking at the results - that we're going from 10 schools with 5 of them on/between Madison and Detroit, to NONE between Athens and the train tracks with the current "community" decision. I don't understand how that is "walkable", to remove ALL the schools from the MOST walkable parts of town.

I took the GREEN SCHOOLS PLEDGE. I encourage you to do the same at
http://www.buildgreenschools.org/.

One of the inspirations for my Kauffman Park proposal was my desire to do our best by our children to provide the greenest site possible through this process. The forum presentation stated that all school sites still being considered could meet LEED Silver standards.

Why settle for Silver when we could hit Gold or Platinum? We don't settle for Effective on the ODE Report Card, we strive for Excellent and beyond. What a great thing it would be for Lakewood to exceed the minimum requirement and show leadership in the region. I'm not the greenest bean in the bunch, but most just 10 years my junior seem to be and certainly their children and grandchildren will be. Aren't we supposed to be building for them?

My understanding of LEED certification as it pertains to the Phase III schools:

Ohio State Facilities Commission (OSFC), which is the state funding source for our new buildings, updated its construction requirements last year. As of November, 2008, all new school buildings constructed with State money must receive AT LEAST the Silver LEED certification.

Hope this helps.

Hi,
So, can someone (e.g. School Board member) jump on here and say, "Yes, the remaining school construction will be LEED silver."?

Or are they planning to utilize some loophole to circumvent this?

I'm concerned that since this has not been advertised as a benefit of the last batch of school construction, it will not be.

Could this be moved to another thread please. This is a separate, important, but separate issue to the issue of children being hijacked by a group dedicate to treading on the working class of this city.

Hi,
Ms. Kinsella you already have one thread devoted to that see: "Phase III Comments and Discussions" do you need 2? I carefully posted in this thread because:
1-Architectural is in the title
2-This is where someone else brought up the LEED term first
3-Everyone in Lakewood that pays property taxes should be demanding these new buildings be as efficient as possible as they will be the ones paying to keep them running for the next 50 years.

Here's a great article on the environmental impact of our local schools. So much can be done, but is the Lakewood School District setting a good example for its students? See: Is Your Child's School Flunking the Environment?

I believe the silence from fellow Deck hands that are on the School Board is an answer in the negative to my question about the final new/remodeled schools being at least LEED silver. They post everywhere about demanding support for raising taxes to spend tax dollars.