"Forgive the pun: In the local news business these days, there's no shortage of leads on LEED. Briefly, that's a national certification program for green—i.e., sustainable—buildings that's setting the standards for a growing number of local projects. One recent example: Developers with the Belvedere project, an upcoming 700-unit, mixed-use neighborhood off Rio Road, told us that it's the first in Central Virginia to be accepted into the LEED pilot program for neighborhood development. Five other local, large-scale LEED projects—the Peabody School addition, the Waldorf School, the Charlottesville Transit Service's main office as well as its operations center, and the Monticello Visitor's Center—are in various stages of planning and building. And Doug Lowe, a local green builder, completed a house for his family in Crozet that earned the LEED for Homes certification, a relatively new arm of the program.

With all the buzz, now seems like a good time to learn a little about LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. No longer just a hippie niche movement, green building has been gaining enough national interest that it's likely sustainable standards will become the norm for most homes in the future. So what is this bandwagon called LEED? To start, it's a set of building guidelines managed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) that, if met by developers, can earn their new buildings certification at varying levels: bronze, silver, gold or platinum.

It's also a way to think about making green adaptations to existing homes. The USGBC's website ( www.usgbc.org) explains that the LEED system analyzes performance in five areas: "sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality." Basic renovations, then, include making sure your heating or cooling system is running efficiently, installing Energy Star appliances and buying low-flow shower heads.

On a broader scale, the LEED Neighborhood Development program (that's the one Belvedere is part of) aims to integrate LEED standards into entire communities. The program pairs LEED's green certification standards with the community development ideals of the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Ashley Katz, a communications coordinator with the USGBC, explains that "the basic idea is to look at the whole neighborhood, instead of just the building, and find ways to link them together in a more sustainable way." Designers of Belvedere, for example, will build community by making the neighborhood more walkable and providing extra bike lanes and paths that will give its residents easier access to built-in businesses. This would ensure that there's "less urban sprawl and more communities that are knit together," Katz said. "It's just a healthier, safer way to build a community."

The Belvedere project will be completed in 2011. In the meantime, you can learn more about LEED's growing local prominence at the website for the USGBC's Charlottesville chapter: www.jrgbc.org." (Carianne King , C-Ville Weekly, August 14, 2007)