A Marin County shopping mall hopes to be the first LEED-certified mall, partly by reserving parking space for low emitting vehicles. All spaces, for guzzlers and green vehicles alike, are unpriced, perhaps pointing to shortfalls of green building.
The notion that the US Green Building Council would award points for parking spaces reserved for low-emissions vehicles while keeping all spaces 'free' might give pause to parking guru, Don Shoup, and justification for a recent Planetizen feature, "Parking Policy Reform More Important Than LEED Certification".
San Rafael's Northgate "mall aims to become California's first regional mall to be LEED certified, and in doing so, officials have reserved 154 parking spaces, or 5 percent of the mall's 3,100 spaces, for "low-emitting fuel-efficient vehicles." The spaces earn the mall points toward Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building certification status, awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council."
"A nine-page list of low-emitting vehicles, determined by the council and available at the mall's guest services kiosk and at the management office, includes hundreds of makes, years and models.
Mall officials have said they encourage only people driving low-emitting vehicles to use the spaces, but the mall does not have an enforcement policy."
However, the plan has run into unexpected difficulties, and for the time being, no spaces will be reserved for the greener vehicles.
Thanks to SF Streetsblog
FULL STORY: Northgate mall's low-emission parking spaces get blacked out - for now
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